Review of The clinical Erik Erikson.
Reviews the book, " The clinical Erik Erikson " by Stephen Schlein (2016). This book discusses the author's appreciation for his mentor, Erikson. Schlein explains that “. . . the psychoanalytic community knows little about the therapeutic technique and clinical method of Erik Erikson” (p. 2), partly because Erikson was reluctant to make such private material public, and that therefore “[Schlein] will try to serve as his voice” (p. 1). This multiyear project involved locating and studying unpublished case material and notes, as well as published case descriptions and comments about technique. Schlein quotes Erikson...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - September 17, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of Different patients, different therapies: Optimizing treatment using differential psychotherapeutics.
Reviews the book, Different Patients, Different Therapies: Optimizing Treatment Using Differential Psychotherapeutics by Deborah L. Cabaniss and Yael Holoshitz (2019). This book focuses on the use and utility of the differential psychotherapeutics (DP) method in thoughtfully matching patients with the treatment modalities from which they are apt to benefit. Although this is certainly a worthy aspiration, the DP method’s matching step has significant limitations in real-world application. Fortunately, the value of this book does not hinge entirely on the functional utility of the DP method for therapy recommendations, bec...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - July 13, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Predicting the working alliance over the course of long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy with the Rorschach Ego Impairment Index, self-reported defense style, and performance-based intelligence: An evaluation of three methodological approaches.
Better therapeutic alliances are known to predict better treatment outcomes, but little knowledge still exists on the patient characteristics that lead to better alliances. In a sample of 128 outpatients assigned to long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy and suffering from mood and/or anxiety disorder, this study evaluated how the alliance, measured using the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI), is predicted by three different measures for assessing psychological resources and vulnerabilities: the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised (WAIS–R), the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ), and the Rorschach-based Ego Impairme...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - July 2, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A new instrument to assess counterdependency, evaluated in the context of postpartum depression.
Counterdependency, a concept that describes defensive activity against dependent strivings, especially wishes to be taken care of, is gradually receiving increased clinical recognition. Clinical observation suggests its importance in many women with postpartum depression (PPD). In this article we report the development of a new self-report instrument to assess counterdependency, the SB Counterdependency Inventory (SBCI). We test the instrument in a population of women visiting websites concerning PPD. We find the instrument to have high reliability, good convergent validity, and that it discriminates between a population w...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - June 25, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Therapeutic practices in relational psychoanalysis: A qualitative study.
As contemporary relational psychoanalytic theory has reworked historical models through a perspectival, postconstructionist lens, new techniques and clinical skills are required. Because there are no single studies specific to the practices of relational psychoanalysis, the purpose of this qualitative study is to determine what a relational psychoanalyst actually does. To achieve this purpose 16 interviews of relational psychoanalysts was conducted in an effort to (a) systematize and identify commonalities in relational psychoanalytic practices, (b) provide a set of fundamentals useful for practice, and (c) provide a scaff...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - June 22, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
How treatment arrangements enhance transference analysis in transference-focused psychotherapy.
This article proposes that the treatment arrangements in TFP play a central role in making an effective, specifically psychoanalytic psychotherapy available for these patients, whom analysts and psychoanalytic therapists might otherwise decline to see. Psychoanalytic here refers to a psychotherapy in which analysis of transference and the eventual development of a more mature, less transferentially affected relationship with the therapist are central to structural personality changes in the patient, although much else may occur. TFP shares the psychoanalytic assumption that the combination of new experience, emotion, and i...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - June 1, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Pathological worry and rumination according to control-mastery theory.
The aim of this article is to propose an interpretation of pathological worry and rumination based on the control-mastery theory (CMT), an integrative, relational cognitive-dynamic theory of mental functioning, psychopathology, and psychotherapy process developed by Joseph Weiss and empirically verified by Weiss, Harold Sampson, and the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group over the last 50 years. In the first part of this article, we will introduce the basic concepts of CMT and how this theory integrates dynamic and cognitive concepts into a relational theoretical frame. Then, we will review several definitions of pa...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - June 1, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Countertransference as a reflection of the patient’s inner relationship conflict.
Countertransference may reflect the patients’ diagnosis and can be used to better understand patients’ inner worlds and core conflictual relationship themes (CCRTs). Thus, the changing emotions of therapists can serve as a marker of treatment processes. This exploratory study aims to identify how the interaction between patients’ CCRT patterns and their respective therapists’ emotions associate with working alliance postsession and patient symptoms. The data analysis is based on 17 subjects who received supportive−expressive therapy. Therapists’ emotional reactions were assessed using the Feeling Word Checklist...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - May 28, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of Warmed by the fires: Selected papers of Allan Frosch.
Reviews the book, Warmed by the Fires: Selected Papers of Allan Frosch edited by Joseph A. Cancelmo, Batya R. Monder, and Hattie B. Myers (2019). The chapters, consisting of articles that were published between 2005 and 2016, are well organized into five sections: Developmental Roots, Psychoanalytic Realities, Deconstructing Analyzability, Empirical Psychoanalytic Inquiry, and From the Frame to the Field. These are followed by a postscript by Ruth Oscharoff. The reviewer enthusiastically recommends this book as an engaging read with a scholarly writer and brilliant analyst. It deals with topics that are at the forefront of...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - April 27, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Studying self-fragmentation from Kohut’s self psychology perspective: Development and validation of the Fragmented Self Inventory.
The main goal of the current study was to empirically study one of the central constructs in Kohut’s self-psychology—self-fragmentation. For this purpose, we constructed a new self-report scale (the Fragmented Self Inventory [FSI]) tapping fragmentations along each of the two major axes of the self—grandiosity and idealization. Across six independent samples, findings provided solid evidence on the reliability and two-factor structure of the scale. In addition, FSI scores were associated with existing scales tapping disorders of the self, self-confusion, frustration of self-object needs, pathological forms of narciss...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - April 23, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A bridge between person-based versus symptom-based nosology: A clinical case study using the Psychodiagnostic Chart-2.
The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual—Second Edition (PDM-2) stresses the importance of the integration between a descriptive and functional understanding of clinical phenomena in order to enhance a person-based nosology. The present article aims to discuss a clinical case of a patient suffering from generalized anxiety disorder, currently considered a controversial diagnosis, in order to illustrate some of the complexities and advantages of the PDM-2 model in the psychodiagnostic description, case formulation, and treatment planning. To do so, we applied the Psychodiagnostic Chart—Second Edition (PDC-2) to an Adult Atta...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - April 23, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of The psychoanalytic ear and the sociological eye: Toward an American independent tradition.
Reviews the book, The Psychoanalytic Ear and the Sociological Eye: Toward an American Independent Tradition by Nancy J. Chodorow (2020). Nancy Chodorow has long been acknowledged for her integrative thinking, bringing together her background in anthropology and sociology with her later psychoanalytic training and practice. In her sixth and most recent volume. The title of her current volume is itself an illustration of its integrative aims. The reference to sensory modalities alludes to Chodorow’s contribution to a panel on “Analytic Listening and the Five Senses” at an American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) mee...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - April 16, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Borderline patients before and after one year of transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP): A detailed analysis of change of attachment representations.
In a mixed-methods approach, this study applies qualitative analysis to Adult Attachment Interview texts of 11 patients with borderline personality disorder, who changed from an insecure attachment representation to security after 1 year of treatment with transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP). Analyses were guided by 3 research questions about changes in (a) attachment strategies, (b) narrative content, and (c) themes to form a theory about the way psychic structure in the form of attachment representation changes during TFP treatment, encompassing the changes of self- and other-representations and of defense mechanisms...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - April 16, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of Racial melancholia, racial dissociation: On the social and psychic lives of Asian Americans.
Reviews the book, Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation: On the Social and Psychic Lives of Asian Americans by David L. Eng and Shinhee Han (2019). The author's most recent collaboration begins to chart the largely unmapped territory of Asian American experiences and psychoanalysis. Eng, a male Chinese American humanities professor, and Han, a female Korean American psychotherapist, have demonstrated their commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship during their fruitful 20-year partnership. This latest installment opens up exciting possibilities for the intersections between critical race theory, psychoanalysis (both cl...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - April 16, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of Borderline bodies: Affect regulation therapy for personality disorders.
Reviews the book, Borderline Bodies: Affect Regulation Therapy for Personality Disorders by Clara Mucci (see record 2018-51205-000). Clara Mucci has undertaken a herculean task with her volume on Borderline Bodies: Affect Regulation Therapy for Personality Disorders. Following an introduction by Allan Schore, there are 10 chapters focusing on trauma, the traumatized body, the borderline patient, the dead mother, sexuality, gender, identity diffusion, PTSD, dissociation, narcissistic personalities, suicide, psychosomatic disorders, hypochondria, antisocial traits, and perversions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - April 13, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
