Review of Transference: Its meaning and function in psychoanalytic therapy.

Reviews the book, Transference: its meaning and function in psychoanalytic therapy by Benjamin Wolstein (see record 1955-01021-000). The book reflects the groping trends of opinion developing from therapeutic experience and from increased awareness of the problems of definition. Many questions related to transference are brought closer to the status of answerable questions. The author sees transference in terms of observable here-and-now behavior. He keeps the focus on present interactions with careful attention to the therapist as an interbehaving organism (countertransference) rather than as a hypnotic authority. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of evidence-based psychodynamic psychotherapy: Bridging the gap between science and practice.

Reviews the book, Handbook of evidence-based psychodynamic psychotherapy: Bridging the gap between science and practice by Raymond A. Levy and J. Stuart Ablon (see record 2008-14828-000). This book presents a lucid and timely review of research advances assessing the efficacy and effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapies in treating many psychological disorders. From research on broad-based meta-analyses of the effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy to close process analysis of therapist and patient interactions, the invited contributors of this volume translate complex research findings into clinically relevant information for clinicians working in the field. The volume is organized to lead the reader from broad-based reviews of psychodynamic psychotherapy outcome studies to examining in-session processes of patient– therapist interactions that affect the patient’s well-being, improvement, and personality change. In all, it lives up to its title and should be added to any clinician’s library. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical interaction and the analysis of meaning: A new psychoanalytic theory.

Reviews the book, Clinical interaction and the analysis of meaning: A new psychoanalytic theory by T. Dorpat and M. Miller (see record 1992-98407-000). This text views psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy from the perspective of the newly proposed concept of "Meaning Analysis." The authors purport to advance psychoanalytic theory and technique by taking a fresh perspective on two important aspects of analytic encounter: the interaction between the analyst and analysand (therapist and patient) and how interactions in this relationship affect transference and countertransference. This book also examines the analysis of meaning and how treatment can assist in the understanding and reconstruction of client beliefs. The authors present a reanalysis of Freud's theory and the goal of the book is to elucidate the "flaws" in his work. The reviewer believes that many readers will be intrigued by the criticisms of Freud and the blending of more recent research into analytic models. This book is recommended for both analytically oriented therapists and interested readers who want to learn more about analytic treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Wish and overgeneralization model for psychotherapy integration.

This article introduces a clinical Wish and Overgeneralization (W&O) Model for dynamic, cognitive and narrative procedures, supported by a metasynthetic study linking cognitive overgeneralization and psychodynamic transference and determining it to be the antithesis of wish – a Luborsky (1988a) transference component. The model emphasizes symptoms and patient core themes: The therapist interprets the conflict between wish and overgeneralization, indicating how it confirms the overgeneralization and sabotages the wish. He helps the patient identify unique outcomes (White & Epston, 1990) for formulation of positive self-statements (Meichenbaum, 1994, 1985, 1977) and proposes an alternative narrative based on a coherent experience. This integrative therapy thus combines insight-oriented and coping strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intersubjective observations on transference love.

In this article, the clinical phenomenon of transference love is used to make 3 contributions: (a) to illustrate how the intersubjective field can encompass more than just patient and therapist, (b) to provide an intersubjective framework for understanding transference love, and (c) to demonstrate how selfobject and antidote functions of the therapeutic relationship can alternate within the same patient–therapist dyad as figure and ground. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Models of brief psychodynamic therapy.

Reviews the book, Models of brief psychodynamic therapy by Stanley B. Messer and C. Seth Warren (see record 1995-98730-000), stating that the book organizes the prevailing models of brief psychodynamic therapy (BPT) into a clear and easily comprehended framework. The opening chapter sets the stage for the remainder of the book through a general overview of the current and historical contexts in which brief psychodynamic therapies have been performed and developed. Current views of brief psychotherapy are reviewed from the perspectives of the patient, the therapist, and managed care. This is followed by a review of the historical background of BPT, in which credit is given to Freud, Rank, Ferenczi, Alexander, and Reich for their relevant technical and theoretical contributions. Next, the authors survey some of the research relevant to BPT. The chapter concludes with a comprehensive discussion on the learning and teaching of BPT. Once this groundwork is laid, the authors delve into a discussion of the major models of BPT currently practiced and researched. The authors group the BPTs along theoretical lines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The authoritative guide to self-help books.

Reviews the book, The authoritative guide to self-help books by J. W. Santrock, A. M. Minnett, and B. C. Campbell (see record 1994-98055-000). This text is the result of an extensive survey of psychologists regarding the self-help literature. It is directed both to lay and professional audiences. The guide is a relatively concise, well-written text that has been very thoroughly and painstakingly constructed. It contains individual reviews of every text listed in the original survey, under criteria set by the authors with respect to frequency of ratings. The guide also is distinctive in that it not only appraises books that the survey indicated were valuable resources, but it also identifies texts that were panned in the original survey material. On the negative side, as far as treatment is concerned, readers will probably note a relatively strong cognitive bias in such topical areas as Depression and Anxiety. This may be a result of the population of psychologists who comprised the original survey. For an audience of therapists, however, the principle difficulty with the guide is the lack of a self-help text on the therapy process itself. However, the reviewer found the book to be a very useful and stimulating resource, and suggests it to any therapist who values self-help books as an adjunct to treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Middle-class waifs. The psychodynamic treatment of affectively disturbed children.

Reviews the book, Middle-class waifs. The psychodynamic treatment of affectively disturbed children by Elaine V. Siegel (see record 1991-98014-000). Most of this book is devoted to case histories of children and their parents who have relatively severe emotional problems yet can be sufficiently responsive to psychotherapy so that positive changes occur. Particularly impressive are the ways in which the author, in her therapeutic role, overcomes the resistances presented by both children and parents. She is clearly an excellent therapist, who would probably be effective regardless of orientation, and her manner of working with people has applicability for all psychotherapists. Her appreciation of the necessary balance in understanding the needs of children and their parents is an exemplary model of what it really means to respect the personhood of patients. One of the intriguing possibilities in this book is the case that is made for the broad applicability of psychoanalytic theory and treatment. During a time in which psychodynamic work is being criticized as taking too long, costing too much, and producing too little, the author offers quite a convincing demonstration of its value. The negative consequences of increased disparagement of this approach are also made apparent, so that a definite step is taken to restore the worth of treatment options. Any limitations of this book are minor, relative to the excellent portrayal of the process of psychotherapy with difficult patients that too often frighten or overwhelm people who could help them if the helpers would let themselves discover how. This work by a master clinician definitely points the way. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Client attachment to therapist: Relations to transference and client recollections of parental caregiving.

This study examined the relations between client attachment to the therapist and therapist perceptions of transference, as well as between client attachment and recollections of parental caregiving. Participants were 51 client-therapist pairs in ongoing therapy. After a therapy session, clients completed a measure of their attachment to their therapists and a measure of their perceptions of parental caregiving during childhood. Therapists rated levels of positive and negative, and amount of, client transference. Both secure and preoccupied-merger attachment were positively related to both negative transference and amount of transference. Level of avoidant-fearful attachment was not correlated with any type of transference. Insecure attachment to the therapist was associated with more negative recollections of parental caregiving. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A type of transference based on identification with an abusing parent.

A type of transference is described in which the patient treats the therapist not as if the latter were his father or mother, but as if the therapist were the patient and the patient reenacts the role of mother and father. This usually occurs when the therapy session seems irritating, exhausting or anxiety-provoking; this is particularly frequent with borderline and schizophrenic patients. An awareness of the significance of this type of transference will allow the therapist to make an unpleasant therapeutic situation into a useful therapeutic intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of transference work in the context of therapeutic alliance and quality of object relations.

Objective: Transference interpretation is considered as a core active ingredient in dynamic psychotherapy. In common clinical theory, it is maintained that more mature relationships, as well as a strong therapeutic alliance, may be prerequisites for successful transference work. In this study, the interaction between quality of object relations, transference interpretation, and alliance is estimated. Method: One hundred outpatients seeking psychotherapy for depression, anxiety, and personality disorders were randomly assigned to 1 year of weekly sessions of dynamic psychotherapy with transference interpretation or to the same type and duration of treatment, but without the use of transference interpretation. Quality of Object Relations (QOR)–lifelong pattern was evaluated before treatment (P. H?glend, 1994). The Working Alliance Inventory (A. O. Horvath & L. S. Greenberg, 1989; T. J. Tracey & A. M. Kokotovic, 1989) was rated in Session 7. The primary outcome variable was the Psychodynamic Functioning Scales (P. H?glend et al., 2000), measured at pretreatment, posttreatment, and 1 year after treatment termination. Results: A significant Treatment Group × Quality of Object Relations × Alliance interaction was present, indicating that alliance had a significantly different impact on effects of transference interpretation, depending on the level of QOR. The impact of transference interpretation on psychodynamic functioning was more positive within the context of a weak therapeutic alliance for patients with low quality of object relations. For patients with more mature object relations and high alliance, the authors observed a negative effect of transference work. Conclusion: The specific effects of transference work was influenced by the interaction of object relations and alliance, but in the direct opposite direction of what is generally maintained in mainstream clinical theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Other times, other realities: Toward a theory of psychoanalytic treatment.

Reviews the book, Other times, other realities: Toward a theory of psychoanalytic treatment by Arnold H. Modell (see record 1990-97902-000). This book is addressed to the psychoanalytically sophisticated reader. Its introduction and 10 chapters take the reader through a history of ideas that have been postulated to explain why psychoanalysis works. Interspersed are valuable comments by Modell that include his own original contributions to the discussion. Chapter 1 revolves around Freud and Nachtr?glichkeit. Chapter 2 illuminates the paradoxical relation between reality and illusions that is manifested in the analytic setting. The concept of reality and its various levels are examined in chapter 3. Chapter 4 discusses the neurobiological theories of Edelman, who postulates that memory is not isomorphic with past experience but a recategorization. Modell sees different levels of reality as corresponding to different forms of transference. He relabels transference neurosis as iconic/projective transference and the transference derived from the setting as dependent/containing transference. Chapter 5 amplifies his remarks on linear and cyclic time. Chapter 6 discusses interpretation and chapter 7 examines the concept of resistance. Other chapters deal with the patient's use of the therapist, with paradox and therapeutic dilemmas, and with various theories of psychoanalytic treatment. Modell tries to classify contemporary theories of psychoanalytic treatment but recognizes such attempts as little more than convenient fictions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Treating stress in families.

Reviews the book, Treating stress in families edited by Charles R. Figley (see record 1989-97469-000). This book builds upon the work of two earlier books in the Psychosocial Stress Series, Stress and the Family, Volumes 1 & 2, both edited by Charles Figley. In the previous volumes attention was focused on ways in which families try to manage the stress of normative transitions (Volume 1) and catastrophes (Volume 2). In the present volume the editor has organized the book around the general theme of therapeutic intervention with families undergoing extraordinary stress. Specific theoretical viewpoints and timely presenting problems are discussed in depth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of interpersonal psychoanalysis and Pioneers of interpersonal psychoanalysis.

Reviews the books, Handbook of interpersonal psychoanalysis, edited by Marylou Lionells, John Fiscalini, Carola H. Mann, and Donnel B. Stern (see record 1995-99011-000) and Pioneers of interpersonal psychoanalysis, edited by Donnel B. Stern, Carola H. Mann, Stuart Kantor, and Gary Schlesinger (see record 1995-99013-000). Of all the principal psychoanalytic schools in contemporary America--Freudian or classical, object relations, self psychological, and interpersonal--the last has stood at the greatest remove from orthodoxy, in part because its founders, most notably Sullivan and Fromm, were not closely linked to the institutional centers. The growing emphasis of world analysis on relational experience, however, as both an influence on personality development and with important implications for treatment, has thrown most of the schools closer together, and the rich contributions of the so-called interpersonalists have made this proximity of even greater importance. The two books prompting these remarks are the most complete and forthright statements of the interpersonal position available. They provide an opportunity to review this position, its gradually emergent effects on clinical work particularly, and the problems and possible solutions resulting. Of course, this interpersonal effort at understanding both treatment and the self does not complete the story. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Understanding transference: The CCRT method.

Reviews the book, Understanding transference: The CCRT method by Lester Luborsky and Paul Crits-Cristoph (1990). Understanding transference: The CCRT method presents a detailed overview of the research of Lester Luborsky, Paul Crits-Christoph, and their colleagues at the Penn Center for Psychotherapy Treatment and Research. Luborsky is one of the pioneers of psychoanalytic process research over the past 30 years. Since the late Seventies, he has elaborated the concept of the core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT). In this important book, the authors describe the evolution of the concept, present research in a number of areas using the CCRT, and give clinical applications of the CCRT. Reflecting the title, the authors are also interested in comparing the CCRT with Freud's writing on transference. Another aspect of the group's work is an interest in the concept of narrative, both as a unit of study and as a theoretical issue. In this review, Rosbrow tries to explain their concepts, elaborate key findings which are striking and clinically significant, and discuss theoretical issues--both those raised explicitly by the authors and also those stimulated by reading this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Techniques of child therapy: Psychodynamic strategies.

Reviews the book, Techniques of child therapy: Psychodynamic strategies by Morton Chetkik (see record 2000-00388-000). Techniques of Child Therapy is not a manual of psychoanalytic theory applied to children but, as the subtitle indicates, it is a presentation to psychodynamic strategies for treating the impairment derived from the faulty development of any of four psychoanalytic constructs: phallic-oedipal, ego functioning, superego expansion, an affective difficulties. Four major sections compose the book: an introduction outlining the characteristics of the child and the general process of assessment, a section dedicated to guiding the parents, and the presentation of two case studies with an elaboration of the treatment process. Of the four sections, the ones devoted to treatment procedures may be the most illuminating to the readers new to psychodynamic theory. A laudable aspect of the book is its abundant and generous use of case studies. Each case is presented with an assessment, clinical material, and treatment techniques. The cases illustrate the assessed area and principles behind the treatment. But a significant challenge to the new therapist is explaining to a 6-year-old child the connection between, say aggressive behavior and oedipal wishes or fears. Parents who underwent psychoanalysis should be able to help. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Learning from the patient.

Reviews the book, Learning from the patient by Patrick J. Casement (see record 1990-99045-000). Learning from the patient is intended as a textbook on the technique of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy for beginning students and supervisors. Despite a regrettable absence of unifying theoretical concepts, Casement's book is masterly in his entirely convincing account of the complexity of unconscious communications that occur between patient and therapist. Casement demonstrates an acute sensitivity directed inward plus an unfailing and unremitting honesty. If I were asked to recommend one book on technique for the beginning therapist, I would recommend Learning from the patient. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Supportive therapy for borderline patients—A psychodynamic approach.

Reviews the book, Supportive therapy for borderline patients—A psychodynamic approach by Lawrence H. Rockland (see record 1992-97952-000). In this book, the author addresses the supportive psychotherapy of clients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). While there is an abundant literature on expressive and psychoanalytic treatments for the borderline client there is very little on supportive approaches in the psychotherapy literature. Rockland offers a guide to the therapist who, after careful assessment and treatment planning, decides that a primarily supportive psychotherapy is most appropriate for his/her client, either initially or throughout the treatment. Using a practical, how-to format, Rockland applies the principles of Psychodynamically Oriented Supportive Therapy (POST)—an approach that he formulated (Rockland, 1989)—to clients with BPD. This text will assist clinicians in conceptualizing interventions that are often already part of their "supportive" repertoire but are applied in an unorganized and unsystematic fashion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of On becoming a better therapist.

Reviews the book, On becoming a better therapist by Barry L. Duncan (see record 2009-22770-000). The aim of this book is provide practical, research-based guidance on how to become a more effective therapist. It was designed for those who are on the front lines of providing psychotherapy services. Two criticisms of the book—or perhaps they are simply concerns— seem pertinent. First, although Duncan’s focus on the client’s experience and feedback is a breath of fresh air in a profession that accords too much power to therapists and too little to clients, the book swings so far in the other direction that it runs the risk of making the same mistake on the client side of the equation. Second, related to the first concern, the book does not adequately address those situations in which the client’s ideas about the treatment might be problematic. Overall this book is an excellent read and a helpful guide to becoming a more effective therapist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editor’s choices.

Reviews the books, Mind regained by Edward Pols (see record 1998-06466-000); Manifesto of a passionate moderate by Susan Haack (1998); and Mind, meaning and mental disorder: The nature of causal explanation in psychology and psychiatry by Derek Bolton and Jonathan Hill (see record 1996-98296-000). In different but equally compelling ways, these three books address central problems in philosophical psychology and offer telling replies to more complacent perspectives on the nature of mind and mental life. The first two of the volumes are by philosophers, the third by authors trained in clinical psychology and psychiatry. In different ways, each of the volumes is at war with simplistic conceptions of explanation; each is also careful to distinguish between the correctives needed and a lapse into relativistic and ultimately skeptical positions on the nature of knowledge itself. All three of these volumes would serve as useful, even essential, texts in advanced courses in theory and philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of mind. But so would they serve in interesting ways the larger aims of courses in Personality and Abnormal Psychology. Together, these books present encouraging reminders of the importance of conceptual analysis to the development and refinement of Psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)