Prevention,the appropriate target of infant psychotherapy

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the case for preventive interventions in infancy aimed at the reduction of childhood psychopathology. The paper considers the terminology of prevention and the case for prevention in infancy. It is argued that increased knowledge concerning the developmental pathways involved in many psychological disorders opens the door to prevention initiatives. An overview of recent prevention trials is provided and the implications from treatment evaluation studies are explored. The case for prevention of conduct disorders is taken as an illustration of the potential for interventions in infancy. A developmental model of conduct disorder implicates a vicious cycle of parent–child interactions, a process that may arguably be preempted by early intervention. Three modalities are considered in detail: (a) early parent training; (b) the enhancement of attachment security; and (c) the facilitation of the development of reflective function. Studies in each of these areas are reviewed. The paper concludes that increased emphasis on the prevention aspect of infant mental health interventions is justified and desirable. © 1998 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Maternal styles in infant psychotherapy: Treatment and research implications

Infant psychotherapy, in which the mother is requested to follow the baby's activities without initiating or directing, is described. Mothers demonstrate different styles of involvement with their infants: a protective mode, a prohibitive mode, a competitive mode, and other ways of interfering with their infants' tendency to explore the environment. Attempts to analyze such factors as position, distance and movement are discussed. Research for recording and analyzing the movement of infant and mother dyads is proposed.     

Feedback in dynamic psychotherapy: Notes on selected clinical issues and practical applications

Conclusion In this presentation of selected clinical issues and applications of feedback in dynamic psychotherapy, I have ranged from metaphor to paradox and the sharing of the therapist’s wisdom; from feedback of silence, empathy, and memories to working through alienation from self; from feedback of the therapist’s psychophysiologic reactions during a session to feedback of the fear of separation and mortality. Believing that all too often the therapeutic process is based on linear feedback, I have focused on the circularity of interactive, interpersonal systems, suprasystems, and subsystems as well as their simultaneous, mutually influencing perception through many equally important channels of communication and levels of awareness. These serve as the ground, frame, and context for constructive feedback between therapist and patient that can promote personality reconstruction and development of human potentials. Revised from a paper presented at a scientific meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis of the Karen Horney Psychoanalytic Institute and Center on April 22, 1993. Immediate Past-President of the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis; author of many publications on verbal and nonverbal communications.     

Multiple birth and its influence on the mothering experience: A case study of parent/infant psychotherapy with quadruplets

The treatment of a mother of quadruplets during the first year of the infants' lives serves as a case example of the issues associated with a multiple birth and how these issues can be addressed via parent/infant psychotherapy. Issues concerning an individual's self-esteem, dependency, envy, and competency as a parent are exaggerated by a multiple birth. The ensuing developmental crisis provides an ideal opportunity for therapeutic work.     

Individual psychotherapy as an adjunct to group psychotherapy

This paper describes a form of combined psychotherapy in which the individual sessions are used as an adjunct to group therapy. Each group member is seen regularly in individual sessions to focus primarily on the member's ongoing group work. The individual sessions are scheduled on a rotating basis. Typically, each group member is seen in an individual session once every four weeks. Additional individual sessions are available only when immediate attention is appropriate and necessary. The group is viewed as the primary therapeutic component. A cost-effective therapeutic approach that uses both individual and group methods, this modality lends itself well to a clinic and to a private practice setting.     

Experiential psychotherapy

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy -     

Reflections on thomism and client-centered psychotherapy

Conclusion To summarize, Rogers and Aquinas both stress the importance of existential experience and sense data. Although Rogers is more concerned with human freedom and being than are many modern adjustment psychotherapists, he is still circumscribed by his initial positivistic assumptions about the nature of man in his therapy. but these assumptions may be in the process of change.But like Aquinas, Rogers has a deep respect for the person, a respect for his emotions, a respect for his whole existential being.³⁸ Rogers once stated that the client-centered point of view is devoid of thequid pro quo aspect of most experiences we call love. It is the simple outgoing human feeling of one individual for another, a feeling it seems ... which is even more basic than sexual or parental feelings. It is a caring enough about the person that you do not wish to interfere with his development, nor to use him for any self-aggrandizing goals of your own. Your satisfaction comes in having set him free to grow in his own fashion.³⁹ Isn't this the spiritual detachment of real Christian love?He has taught at the University of California at Los Angeles and at Loyola University (Los Angeles), and has been a staff psychologist at the Metropolitan State Hospital, Los Angeles. He is a member of the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Psychotherapists.Portions of this paper were presented at the 16th Annual Scientific Session, Guild of Catholic Psychiatrists, Los Angeles, 1964.     

Positive psychotherapy

Positive psychotherapy (PPT) contrasts with standard interventions for depression by increasing positive emotion, engagement, and meaning rather than directly targeting depressive symptoms. The authors have tested the effects of these interventions in a variety of settings. In informal student and clinical settings, people not uncommonly reported them to be "life-changing." Delivered on the Web, positive psychology exercises relieved depressive symptoms for at least 6 months compared with placebo interventions, the effects of which lasted less than a week. In severe depression, the effects of these Web exercises were particularly striking. This address reports two preliminary studies: In the first, PPT delivered to groups significantly decreased levels of mild-to-moderate depression through 1-year follow-up. In the second, PPT delivered to individuals produced higher remission rates than did treatment as usual and treatment as usual plus medication among outpatients with major depressive disorder. Together, these studies suggest that treatments for depression may usefully be supplemented by exercises that explicitly increase positive emotion, engagement, and meaning. ((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).     

Computer-assisted psychotherapy

By making careful selections and arrangements from the numerous items of information that arise in dynamic psychotherapy and filing them in a microcomputer, this information can be made more readily available to the therapist. Its greater availability can facilitate developing understanding of the patient, making specific and timely insightful interventions, and supporting other aspects of the therapy.     

An essay on psychotherapy and religion

Cultural innovation by thinkers of the early twentieth century created an intellectual impasse between competing understandings of religion. Religion was understood as either transcendence and the sacred (e.g., Otto) or as fantasy and projection (e.g., Freud). Whether a cooperative symbiosis of these orientations toward religion can be achieved is the central and unresolved issue of this paper. “Examined experience” is considered within religious studies and psychotherapy. Although not conclusive, the argument is that examined experience is a means by which the desired symbiosis can be achieved. The essay is personal in that it reflects the author's struggle for understanding, especially as Western (e.g., Christian) and Eastern (e.g., Zen) experiences are examined.     

Inducing psychotherapy: Hypnotic analogue for brief psychotherapy

These authors contend that hypnosis is a useful analogue and change accelerator for brief psychotherapy.A deep structure of psychotherapy is described by Frank, as making changes in a person's assumptive world so he/she may live more effectively. Cognitive alterations arise from new emotional experiences or emotional schemas which in turn have arisen in the context of a therapy relationship.A parsimonious recipe for the structure of brief psychotherapy is hypnosis. Hypnotic analogues for psychotherapy emerge from many theoretical backgrounds. After integrating aspects of these theories, a general analogue of hypnosis for the structure of brief psychotherapy is suggested. The analogue addresses induction, power issues, deepening, making and solidifying cognitive alterations, and endings.