Catamnestic studies of patients with writer's cramp following inpatient psychotherapy

The paper gives the results of a follow-up study of 58 patients after psychotherapeutic treatment as in-patients for writer's cramp. Where as immediately after discharge 74.1% of the patients felt an improvement in their condition, at the time of the follow-up study only 17.2% were demonstrably improved, with 37.9% subjectively feeling an improvement over their state before treatment as in-patients. These results suggest that the customary psychotherapeutic methods employed have less effect on the evidently multifactorial extrapyramidal-motor basic complaint but rather have the effect of improving the patient's ability to cope with this in daily life.     

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.     

Work with adolescents brief psychotherapy with a limited aim

The ideas and cases presented here are the outcome of our experience in an experimental “Walk-in-Centre” for young people between the ages of 14-22 years. Our approach, however, was influenced by the insight and understanding acquired from intensive analytic work with adolescents and the detailed discussion and research studies undertaken at the Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic.     

Effectiveness of child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in a clinical outpatient setting

The objective of this study was to evaluate the outcome of child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in a clinical outpatient setting in a city in southern Brazil. Three psychological tests (Rorschach, Bender and WISC III) were administered to 23 children, aged 6–11 years old, and the Child Behaviour Check List (CBCL) was completed by the parents. All testing was completed before the beginning of the individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The same measures were repeated after 12 months of intervention. The 23 children who received individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy were compared with a control group who did not receive any kind of intervention. In the clinical group, the results indicated a statistically significant reduction of anxiety symptoms (0.002) and school problems (0.031), improvement in interpersonal relationships (0.022), and positive change in the following CBCL scales: withdrawn (0.010), thought problems (0.022), anxiety and depression (0.017), internalising (0.008) and total (0.003). An effect size of 0.696 was calculated based on the CBCL total scale before and after the intervention. The results revealed that child psychoanalytical psychotherapy is mostly effective in the treatment of female children who present internalising disorders.     

Group psychotherapy in a school setting for adolescent children of alchoholics

Adolescents experiencing personal difficulties commonly evidence their problems while in school. Group psychotherapy within the school setting can be an effective means of helping an adolescent subject to stress at home. Parental alcoholism is the problem shared by a group composed of six students led by a clinical social worker. The broader implications of group therapy in a school setting as a means of helping young people with problems that interfere with their education and socialization are also considered.     

Nonrelativist ethical standards for goal setting in psychotherapy

In this article, I discuss two principles that can be viewed as universally applicable in psychotherapy and counseling: respect for clients' welfare and respect for their self-determination. Consideration of the practical application of these principles leads to the formulation of a set of guidelines to aid therapists and counselors in making choices about instrumental and end goals. These guidelines are intended to be applicable regardless of the particular personal and cultural values of the therapist and client.     

Efficacy of brief telephone psychotherapy with callers to a suicide hotline

The efficacy of two types of theapy conducted exclusively over the telephone was studied. Clients (N=55) were recruited from a pool of callers to a suicide hotline and were randomly assigned to a waiting list control (WC) or Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) or Common Factors Therapy (CFT). It was hypothesized that improvements would be significantly higher in the two therapy conditions compared to the waitlist control and SFBT would be significantly more efficacious than CFT. Results confirmed that improvement was significantly higher in the two treatment conditions compared to the waitlist control, but no difference in improvement was found between SFBT and CFT. The implications of these findings for suicide hotlines are discussed.     

Pre-group preparation model for long-term group psychotherapy in a private practice setting

In this paper the authors describe a method of pre-group preparation which has the function of establishing and maintaining a working alliance between the client and the therapist, reducing unproductive anxiety, generating hope for future productive therapeutic work, as well as providing the therapist with a screening technique for assessing the type of group composition that would be most beneficial for the client.We are grateful to our colleague, the late Walter Gruen, whose comments on this paper contributed to the final product.