Extreme experience, psychological insight, and Holocaust perception: Reflections on Bettelheim and Frankl.

This article describes the psychological theories of the Holocaust survivors Bruno Bettelheim and Viktor Frankl. Both Bettelheim and Frankl claimed that their peculiar forms of psychotherapy, in the case of Bettelheim mileau therapy, and Frankl, logotherapy, were based on their survival. However, their radically different forms of psychotherapy, when at least elements of their camp experience was similar, suggests that their psychotherapies were based more upon the worldviews before their interment along with their need to work over the humiliation and profound victimization they experienced in the camps. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychognosis and psychopedics.

Comments on how psychology is badly in need of a new and more precise term to describe the intimate interpersonal activity between psychologist and emotional upset client. The author states that psychiatrists generally and many clinical psychologists prefer the term "psychotherapy" for the activity involved, possibly because of the association of the term "therapy" with medical treatment; though etymologically the term "psychotherapy," meaning "service of the soul," might be most appropriately preempted by pastoral psychology. According to the author, the contention recently advanced by a committee of the AMA that, since "therapy" is a medical function, psychotherapy can be legitimately performed only by licensed physicians, stretches a tenuous metaphor to the breaking point and seems to demonstrate the prepotency of economic considerations over both logic and social responsibility. Lastly, the author states that the use of terms like psychognosis and psychopedics for diagnosis and psychotherapy, though awkward at first, would further both conceptual clarity and the delineation of the psychologist's (and the delimitation of the physician's) professional responsibility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Active Ingredients in Individual Psychotherapy: Searching for Common Factors.

Every serious school of psychotherapy has its own theory--often only vaguely formulated--concerning the active ingredients in psychotherapy. Many of these theories are presented as mutually exclusive. The author presents an overview of some of the important, primarily psychoanalytically founded, theories of the factors in individual psychotherapy that are responsible for inducing change. It is impossible to pinpoint any single factor that is crucial in every therapy. What is needed is a nondogmatic, multiple-factor model that successfully incorporates the knowledge obtained from the many existing theories of psychotherapy-induced change. In practice, it is often difficult to maintain the traditional distinction between specific and nonspecific factors, just as it is difficult to distinguish the roles played by purely therapeutic factors--relating to the technique of the therapist--and by extratherapeutic factors. The author also addresses the epistemological status of the various claims put forward, by the many different theories of psychotherapy, concerning the active ingredients in psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transcending the angel beast: Viktor Frankl and humanistic psychology.

In this article the author describes the relationship of Viktor Frankl, the famous Holocaust survivor and founder of logotherapy, with the Big 3 (Rollo May, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow) of the American humanistic psychology movement. From the perspective of his quasi-religious meaning-centered logotherapy, Frankl criticized the humanistic psychology movement for overlooking the transcendent nature of human experience. The author argues that the source of these criticisms stems from Frankl's traumatic Holocaust experience that made him unable to accept an immanent meaning to human existence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy: Is there a meaningful distinction in the process?

The purpose of this article is to delineate general features of the psychoanalytic process that are more encompassing of contemporary theoretical models, and to use these features as criteria to explore if a meaningful distinction can be made between psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Following a brief historical review of the literature, the author discusses the basis of theory, research, and practice of the so-called extrinsic and intrinsic criteria for psychoanalysis, and concludes that a meaningful distinction with psychoanalytic psychotherapy cannot be made. The author then offers the fundamental features of the psychoanalytic process that can include all psychoanalytic approaches. It is proposed that the psychoanalytic investigatory stance involves inquiry based on variable admixture of the empathic and other-centered listening vantage points, and that the distinctive domain of psychoanalytic inquiry is not just the patient's experience of the analytic relationship, but the patient's total experiential world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychotherapy of the chronically suicidal patient

A major issue in the psychotherapy of the chronically suicidal is the patient's avoidance of his responsibility. If the patient is not helped to recognize this avoidance, the therapist's efforts may be consigned to future attempts to either assume responsibility for the patient or to rescue him.     

Conceptualizing the therapeutic alliance from a psychoanalytic perspective.

Defines the therapeutic alliance as the patient's active collaboration in the work of psychotherapy or psychoanalysis. The failure to differentiate alliance from transference has in part led to the skepticism regarding the concept of alliance. The patient's active use of the treatment process as a resource for self-understanding and constructive change constitutes his/her collaboration. The nature of collaboration varies with the type of treatment. The alliance depends significantly upon the patient's ability to maintain an observing ego; the activation of transferences significantly affects this process. The alliance is influenced by a core of object relations capacities that are essential to forming a trusting relationship. Defining alliance as patient collaboration makes a sharp distinction between technique and alliance. It is suggested that a scale devised to assess the degree of collaboration, based on this conceptualization, by the present 3rd author and colleagues (1983) provides an instrument for future research. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The internal separation struggle and therapeutic progress.

If psychoanalysis is first and foremost a romance of the familiar, then its simultaneous role as a theory of therapeutic change might appear incongruous, if not contradictory. Nevertheless, much attention has been paid, in the years following Freud's death, to the development of a psychoanalytic theory of the mechanisms of change, although the psychoanalytic study of the aesthetics of change (according to Freud's use of the term, in which "aesthetic is understood to mean not merely the theory of beauty but the theory of the qualities of feeling" [S. Freud, 1919/1955b, p. 219]) has been less thoroughly attended to. It is to this latter sort of psychoanalytic account of change that this article speaks. Specifically, the author inquires into the forms and genesis of one particular aspect of the psychoanalytic aesthetics of change, which arises when the patient's progress in psychotherapy arouses a sense that she or he is leaving behind a more disturbed version of herself or himself, for a new and largely unfamiliar one, with intolerable consequences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Helping construct desirable identities: A self-presentational view of psychotherapy.

The author reviews the research demonstrating not only that clients withhold personal information and reactions from their therapists but also that such discretion is associated with positive therapy process ratings and outcomes. These results run counter to traditional approaches to psychotherapy, which demand a high degree of openness from clients. These puzzling findings can be explained by conceptualizing psychotherapy as a self-presentational process, wherein clients come to benefit from therapy by perceiving that their therapists have favorable views of them. Creating these favorable impressions can involve clients' hiding some undesirable aspects of themselves from their therapists. The author offers findings from the psychotherapy and social-psychology literatures in support of this view and makes suggestions concerning what clients and therapists might optimally reveal in therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Corsini's individual education: A democratic model.

This article describes a new or alternative school model/system based on democratic principles and Adlerian philosophy that emphasizes the development of student responsibility for learning and behavior. The model is constructed around the implementation of four R's: responsibility, respect, resourcefulness, and responsiveness. The school contains three curriculums: academic, creative, and social. A mastery model of achievement is utilized, and a progress chart is used in place of marks/grades. Grade levels are not used. Discipline is based on natural and logical consequences and there are only three school rules. Preliminary research suggests increased achievement and decreased disciplinary problems; greater student, teacher, and parent satisfaction; and fewer teacher absences. The democratic principles and the four R's represent the best practices of group counseling and psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emerging from the "dark night of the soul": Healing the false self in a narcissistically vulnerable minister.

Reviews the concept of selective or conditional mirroring, which can foster the development of a false self in early childhood, and examines aspects of the ministry that may reinforce the minister's false self experience and eventually contribute to a severe sense of disillusionment and despair. The theoretical underpinnings of the false self phenomenon and its treatment implications are elaborated in a case report of the psychotherapy process with a severely depressed 40-yr-old minister who had an underlying narcissistic disorder. The case example describes the interplay between psychotherapeutic factors and religious symbolism that led to transformation in both the patient's sense of self and his faith in God. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinician assessments of patient difficulty.

Studied global judgments of case difficulty made by expert clinicians (a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a social worker) after viewing a complete session of psychotherapy. The 2nd session of 48 short-term (12 sessions) psychotherapy patients with posttraumatic stress disorder, adjustment reaction, major depressive episode, panic disorder, or uncomplicated bereavement was videotaped for judging. Difficulty was conceptualized as a subjective sense of the amount of effort the clinician would have to apply in the treatment of the case. Results show that difficulty ratings by the clinicians correlated most strongly with 2 variables—the patient's pretherapy level of self-reported symptomatic distress (measured by the SCL-90) and the extent to which the patient presented the therapist with double-binding relationship dilemmas, as rated by independent clinicians. Patient difficulty was also modestly correlated with therapy outcome. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The meaning of empathy: Comments on Hans Strupp's case of Helen R.

Comments on H. H. Strupp's (see record 1991-16137-001) article in which it was asserted that time-limited dynamic psychotherapy may have had an adverse outcome in the patient's view. Strupp's therapy with this particular individual failed, it is argued, because of a lack of empathy. Strupp assumes erroneously that empathy is identical to being gentle and understanding. Unless empathy is understood as the full experiencing of the lifeworld of another person, it traps a client in reactive emotionality and a fragile sense of self, encourages dependency and acting-out behaviors, and supports the client's current way of languaging problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patient's and therapist's views of early alliance building in dynamic psychotherapy: Patterns and relation to outcome.

Patients and therapists have somewhat divergent perspectives of alliance. Usually in psychotherapy research, the focus is on the patient's view of alliance, predicting parts of outcome. This study questions this hypothesis by applying the shape-of-change procedure to patient's and therapist's view of alliance-building processes in dynamic psychotherapy. The results of this naturalistic study indicate that none of the 3 patient patterns is related to outcome at the end of psychotherapy, but a specific therapist's pattern--out of 2--is linked to positive symptom change. These results are discussed in the context of present research on therapeutic alliance, especially in terms of level and process, its measurement, and potential in predicting outcome in dynamic psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical training and expert testimony: Comment.

Comments on the original article by R. Jeffrey (see record 1965-06327-001) regarding expert testimony by psychologists in two separate court cases. The current author opines that it is a highly questionable practice for the American Psychological Association to approve programs in clinical psychology when many of these universities cynically or indifferently designate the entire responsibility for training and supervision in psychodiagnostics and psychotherapy to others, outside the university, whose competence is often unknown. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A response to Greenberg's review of Therapeutic experiencing: The process of change.

Responds to Greenberg's review of the current author's book, Therapeutic experiencing: The process of change (see record 2007-09053-001). How do we make sense of what clients say and do? This is a fundamental issue in psychotherapy, the nettling theme in Professor Greenberg's review, and the focus of this response. Quite apart from the present volume, I have struggled with this issue in framing a comprehensive theory of human beings, in outlining the theory and basic methods of an experiential psychotherapy, and in a separate series of articles. It is time for the field of psychotherapy to come to grips with the key questions underlying the issue of how we make sense of what clients say and do. Not only would this be good for the field of psychotherapy, it might also clarify why Professor Greenberg is entitled to be puzzled by the theory and methods of this experiential way of making sense of what clients say and do. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The practice of psychotherapy: A search for principles in an ambiguous art.

Explores strengths and limitations of psychotherapy. Issues include the place of religious and moral considerations vs scientific and rational methods; how intuitive, imaginative, and unconscious processes are understood, and how to evaluate popular or more traditional psychotherapies. It is noted that there are inherent problems in communication that create ambiguities, particularly with regard to training, the epistemological underpinnings of psychoanalysis, and the sense of responsibility that must accompany the work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)