Psyshoanalysis and its discontents

There are only 5,000 patients in psychoanalysis with members of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), and these analysts are often viewed as arrogant and insular. As a laboratory for psychoanalytic institutions the APsaA provides crucial lessons for the future across the field. What ingredients are needed for psychoanalysis to be a vibrant discipline? What factors have prevailed where psychoanalysis is successful? The author explores the cases of Argentina and France, where psychoanalysis is relatively popular, and then returns to the U.S. situation. Insular mind-sets led to many missed opportunities for cultural and academic engagement in the United States. As an example, the author explores responses to the making of John Huston's film Freud: The Secret Passion. To become revitalized, psychoanalysis needs to be a cultural asset. Psychoanalysts need to build bridges, engage in partnerships, and emphasize the exciting method of philosophical probing of the human mind and the nature of human nature.

O atendimento psicoterápico com adolescentes: inovações técnicas com o uso do mediador clínico – jogo Túnel do tempo

Pós-graduação em Psicologia - FCLAS

Uma proposta de psicoterapia breve para paciente com escoriação psicogênica

Psychogenic Excoriation is a psychodermatosis characterized by skin alterations connected to mental processes, which are more common in women. It generates a considerable physical and psychosocial discomfort to the patient, because of the skin lesions. These patients assume to injure their own skin, and it differentiates this diagnosis from the factual dermatitis. This acknowledgement facilitates the insertion of these patients in psychotherapeutic processes, including fast psychotherapy, which can benefit them, especially in hospital contexts such as hospital ambulatories specialized in dermatology. Fast dynamic psychotherapies are described, analyzed and recommended to a psychogenic excoriation patient while introducing the process plan indicated to her. It relates to the clinical study of cases with medical records, psycho interviews and results of the FPI (Factor Personality Inventory). Based on these data, a fast psychotherapy is suggested with defined focus, aim and time, with a therapeutic plan according to what’s recommended in this type of treatment. The main objective is the symptom alleviation besides self-knowledge and insights, clarifying the most important identified psychodynamic conflicts. It’s also suggested that the suggested fast psychotherapy process could well result in important therapeutic gains to the analyzed patient.

A Framework for Addressing Psychological Inflexibility Among Act Therapists-In-Training.

Novice therapists training in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) may encounter challenges in therapy in which their own personal history functions as a barrier to flexible modes of therapeutic engagement with the therapist. From the ACT perspective, counter-therapeutic interpersonal responses may be examined relative to six behavioral sub-processes. It is suggested that the most vulnerable moments for the therapist will involve those in which certain contextual features of therapy pull historical awareness of a painful personal past into relation with the psychological present. This paper hypothesizes that utilizing approaches based in ACT will assist therapists in overcoming these challenges and will illustrate how to approach case formulation and intervention with therapists in training from a functional contextualistic perspective. To begin, the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of ACT will be outlined in sufficient depth to intellectually ground the model and its therapeutic project. This conceptual foundation will then be brought to applied focus using hypothetical case material, followed by ACT interventions designed to increase clinical flexibility in the given therapeutic scenario. Future research that systematically examines the effectiveness of such methods among therapists is encouraged.

Fostering Change: Toward Understanding, Valuing, and Informing the Therapeutic Role of Foster Parents

Foster parents have the potential to effect lasting therapeutic change through their role with the children they temporarily foster. Therapists working with foster parents can understand, support, and inform foster parents in their role based on a commonality that exists between the roles of therapists and foster parents. Similarities at different stages of both the therapeutic and foster parenting relationships are addressed, as well as the use of these relationships in a therapeutic manner. Advantages (for foster parents, foster children, therapists, and the foster care system) of articulating the foster parenting relationship through the lens of the therapeutic relationship are also discussed. Future research into the experience of foster parents in their role will be essential in creating an effective and sustainable system of care for vulnerable children.

Emotional experience in psychotherapeutic interaction : Conversation analytical study on cognitive psychotherapy

The dissertation examines how emotional experiences are oriented to in the details of psychotherapeutic interaction. The data (57 audio recorded sessions) come from one therapist-patient dyad in cognitive psychotherapy. Conversation analysis is used as method. The dissertation consists of 4 original articles and a summary. The analyses explicate the therapist s practices of responding to the patient s affective expressions. Different types of affiliating responses are identified. It is shown that the affiliating responses are combined with, or build grounds for, more interpretive and challenging actions. The study also includes a case study of a session with strong misalignment between the therapist s and patient s orientations, showing how this misalignment is managed by the therapist. Moreover, through a longitudinal analysis of the transformation of a sequence type, the study suggests that therapeutic change processes can be located to sequential relations of actions. The practices found in this study are compared to earlier research on everyday talk and on medical encounters. It is suggested that in psychotherapeutic interaction, the generic norms of interaction considering affiliation and epistemic access, are modified for the purposes of therapeutic work. The study also shows that the practices of responding to emotional experience in psychotherapy can deviate from the everyday practices of affiliation. The results of the study are also discussed in terms of concepts arising from clinical theory. These include empathy, validation of emotion, therapeutic alliance, interpretation, challenging beliefs, and therapeutic change. The therapist s approach described in this study involves practical integration of different clinical theories. In general terms, the study suggests that in the details of interaction, psychotherapy recurrently performs a dual task of empathy and challenging in relation to the patient s ways of describing their experiences. Methodologically, the study discusses the problem of identifying actions in conversation analysis of psychotherapy and emotional interaction, and the possibility to apply conversation analysis in the study of therapeutic change.