The blessing as a rite of passage in adolescence

Central to the transition from adolescence to early adulthood is the transformation that takes place in the parent-child relationship, heretofore studied as emotional autonomy, psychological separation, and separation-individuation. Blos (1985) suggested that individuation perhaps necessarily includes the confirmation of the child's adult status by the same-sex parent, called "the blessing." Of the 281 late adolescents in the present study, 71.5% indicated they had received some type of blessing from a parent and described the event as meaningful. Males were more likely to receive a blessing regarding instrumental traits, while females were more likely to receive a blessing regarding overall maturity, pubertal changes, or a specific rite of passage. These results offer support for Blos's position regarding the importance of this event to the young adult.     

Family therapy as a rite of passage: play's the thing

Although there is a considerable literature about the nature of family problems and techniques of therapeutic change, little is known about how change in the family therapy setting can be maintained over time. The current paper suggests that important insights into the nature of family therapy can be gleaned by comparison with "naturally occurring" rites of passage. Anthropological analysis of these rites suggests several concepts that may guide the family therapist. These include: (a) the idea of a "therapeutic frame" that marks off the therapy setting; (b) the role of symbolic process and flexibility; (c) the concepts of liminal play and flow as explanations of therapeutic technique and potential; and (d) the relationship between the family in treatment and a wider community. Rites of passage can serve as an important source of comparison and insight into the nature of change in the family therapy setting.     

绘画疗法——心理治疗的艺术途径

绘画疗法是以绘画作为治疗师和患者间的中介物来进行治疗的。目前,我国关于这一心理治疗方法的研究和应用都比较少。本文简单介绍了绘画疗法的理论基础、作用机理、实际操作、应用现状及疗效,并初步提出绘画疗法以后的研究方向。     

Revolutionary Claims and Visions in Psychotherapy: An Anthropathological Perspective

Consideration of the semantic problem of revolution in psychotherapy is followed by some justifications for a critical and subjective approach to this discussion. Alleged revolutions in the field are critically examined, followed by an envisaged revolution and its possible ingredients. Attention is paid to the concept of a revolutionary new human, with affective-somatic and embodied-mystical examples given. Obstacles to such revolution are briefly examined and the concept of universal human sickness or anthropathology is discussed, along with the notion of an anti-anthropathological revolution.     

Personality Disorder Attributes as Supplemental Goals for Change in Interpersonal Psychotherapy

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is a manualized, short-term (usually 12–16 sessions) based on the assumption that psychological disorders often emerge secondary to social and interpersonal problems that require active intervention to achieve symptom remission. The time-limited nature of IPT compels therapists to establish the goal of diminishing, on a weekly basis, a small number of focused interpersonal problems with a decided emphasis on proximal rather than historic conflicts and associated patterns of behavior. This strategy discourages the adoption of diffuse therapy goals and directions that have more opportunity to emerge in long-term, unstructured treatment modalities. The role of traditional personality testing in short-term therapy, when it occurs, is to identify and quantify symptom clusters that warrant attention as dependent measures in the treatment process. The role of personality factors in the genesis or maintenance of psychological disturbance is rarely addressed. The present article explores theoretical and pragmatic objections to the use of personality testing in IPT. A method is proposed for the limited but systematic incorporation of personality testing in the IPT treatment process using the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-III). While unreasonable to expect personality transformation through short-term therapy, the partial attenuation of maladaptive behavioral, attitudinal, and emotional reactions to stressors could prove exceedingly helpful to short-term treatments such as IPT.     

Using the MMPI-2 to Predict Symptom Reduction During Psychotherapy in a Sample of Community Outpatients

In the present study, potential MMPI-2 predictors of psychotherapy outcome were examined in a community clinical sample of 51 patients seeking treatment at a university training clinic. Results indicated that particular MMPI-2 scales (L, F, Pd, Pa, Sc, Trt) were the most predictive of initial levels of patient distress, whereas three other clinical scales (Hs, D, Hy) were significantly associated with actual symptom reduction over time. The clinical implications of these data include the use of the MMPI-2 in clinical practice as a means to frame the provision of direct feedback to patients regarding the likelihood of treatment response, which in turn, might actually have therapeutic benefits. The limitations of the study are reviewed and suggestions for future research are offered, including the potential use of widely known and utilized instruments in helping to predict response to psychotherapy.     

Freud's writing: his (w)rite of passage and its reverberations

The study of Freud's personal conception of writing and his use of it illuminates a significant aspect of his relationship with others, and also his sense of his own heroic greatness. In two related periods of his life, acts of writing--which were notably overdetermined in Freud and which informed as well as facilitated a distinctive kind of self-expression--gave rise to veritable (w)rites of passage. In those periods, the transferential dynamics in Freud's relationships with Fliess, his daughter Anna, and certain important analysands were expressed in ways connected with the content and process of various types of writing, including editing and translating. In sum, there is something still to be discovered in Freud's attitudes to his writing and to related intergenerational transactions between analysts and analysands who engage together in compositional activities.     

Sentences with Strong Psychological Impact in Psychotherapy: Research in Progress

After a brief exposition of Elementary Pragmatic Model about changes in dyadic interactions, the validity and clinical usefulness of the model was evaluated with a newly created test, called SISCI-Sentences. This test is composed of 90 Sentences with strong psychological impact. Administration of this test to non-clinical and clinical participants produced statistically significant differences between the choices of participants in the two groups. Implications of these results for the use of these Sentences in the course of psychotherapy are discussed.

阿德勒心理治疗方法与当代心理治疗整合精神的契合

阿德勒为心理治疗提供了一个经得起时间考验的综合理论。他对人类行为做了务实的概念化处理,并改变了程序使其可能整合当代心理治疗理论中众多有价值的见解。阿德勒心理治疗与当代实践之间存在很多相似之处,因为阿德勒治疗是一种现在与未来定向的、限时性的（即短程的）、整合性和折衷性的方法。     

The Sequential Combination of Pharmacotherapy and Psychotherapy in Mood Disorders

The aim of this review was to consider the literature concerned with a sequential use of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy in mood disorders. Review of the clinical trials where treatment components were used in a sequential order were identified by using MEDLINE, a manual search of the literature and the Index Medicus. In unipolar recurrent depression, the sequential use of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy was found to improve relapse rate. In bipolar disorder, the use of psychotherapeutic strategies in patients who were already assuming mood stabilizers was also found to yield clinical benefits. The sequential model has the potential for improving the logic and timing of interventions. A conceptual shift in current assessment methods (staging) is needed.     

A rite of social passage: Gunnersbury Park, 1835–1925, a Rothschild family villa

ABSTRACT

In 1835 Nathan Rothschild purchased Gunnersbury Park. Set in only 75 acres, this Regency villa in Ealing, just outside London, was the antithesis of a landed estate. The house remained in the family until 1925. This article argues that the architecture, interior decoration, garden and social use of Gunnersbury Park, although consonant with villa tradition, were shaped by the choices of this Jewish mercantile family, instrumental in Rothschild self-fashioning and their pursuit of acceptance by the social elite. As Gunnersbury evolved to serve the changing needs of successive generations, it invited the outside world in, redefining the family through new interests in sport, the garden and collecting, all nurtured there. Remarkably this acculturation took place within, not outside the Jewish context, the ties of family and religion remaining vital influences. In tracing this social rite of passage, it emerges that by the twentieth century the Rothschilds, now enmeshed in upper-class society, defined themselves not simply as Jews but as British Jews. Gunnersbury Park, neglected in Rothschild historiography, facilitated this transformation while remaining a family home of lasting resonance for all who had known it.     

Antidepressants,Psychotherapy or their Combination: Weighing Options for Depression Treatments

Psychotherapy and antidepressant medications are the two preeminent treatment choices for depression. This article puts each of these treatments into perspective by presenting an overview of what is currently known about their effectiveness either singly or in combination. Discussion of placebos, common factors among therapies, relapse rates, depression severity, patient treatment preferences and exaggerations in pharmaceutical advertising provide guidance for clinicians in deciding on the best course of treatment. Overall, research reveals the importance of psychosocial factors, no matter what the mode of treatment, and the need for fostering a collaborative bond between clinicians and their patients. We argue that empirical evidence points to making psychotherapy the initial treatment choice for most cases of depression.     

Psychotherapy as a skilled practice

While psychotherapy is related to both science and art, it is primarily a craft activity requiring the development of skilful practice, epitomized by the discipline of the analytic attitude. In terms of the forms of knowledge outlined by Aristotle, this places psychotherapy in the realm of ‘technê’ (arts and craft) rather than epistêmê (science). In particular, the technê of psychotherapy is concerned with the development of phronesis (practical wisdom) in both patient and analyst and its ultimate aim is concerned with the promotion of eudaimonia, a state of well-being considered by Aristotle to be definitive of ‘the good life’. It is therefore fundamentally an ethical endeavour. The nature of psychotherapeutic skill is illustrated by analogy with three other forms of technê – music, meditation and pottery. Clinical examples illustrate the crafting of interpretations and the art of patient holding.     

心理治疗的循证实践与循效施治

循证实践与循效施治是当前国外心理治疗的两种相互补充的模式,二者在理论假设、获取证据的来源、操作流程等方面存在着明显不同。从影响来看,循证实践的影响力超过了循效施治,它被美国提升推广为一种心理学运动,它的倡导昭示着目前临床心理治疗的一个关键性改革。然而,在心理治疗中要真正实施循证实践存在着很多困难和挑战,循效施治是解决这些困难和问题的方法之一。我国心理治疗的专业化水平不高,藉美国心理治疗循证实践提供的理念和方法去思考中国心理治疗的问题,我们亦可获得有益于中国心理治疗发展的思路。     

Psychotherapy as a moral enterprise

This article addresses the phenomenon of psychotherapy as a moral enterprise by discussing the notion of morality as it relates to the therapeutic task, enumerating ways in which the practices of psychotherapy can confuse a moral sense of things and by offering suggestions as to how psychotherapy can be undertaken as a moral enterprise.     

Ethics,Alterity, and Psychotherapy: A Levinasian Perspective

Current psychologies of religion reflect the modernist context in which they are situated. Religion is reduced to what is researchable, generalizable, individual and “thin.” This essay suggests that a psychology of religion which takes seriously the implications of Emmanuel Levinas’s emphasis on ethics and the alterity of the Other would result in a different model of psychotherapy. Levinas’s view of the Other as the trace of the transcendent radically changes our understanding of the client within the therapeutic relationship. Levinas begins with ethics and so healing would be, by implication, an ethical enterprise. In a highly secularized, individualized, objectivized culture, a therapy which recognizes the sacred, which models how to view the Other as transcendent, and which does not presume to know, is a gift to the client.     

Expiation,Substitution and Surrender: Levinasian Implications for Psychotherapy

This essay will build on Emmanuel Levinas’s rejection of ontology as foundational and draw out the implications for psychotherapy. We will explore Levinas’s concept of substitution (in both his more Jewish writings and his philosophical treatises) and consider its meaning in relationship to the role of a psychotherapist. Levinas understands the Other as a calling for substitution of the self and of a taking on of responsibility. We explore the notion of surrender in the work of the psychoanalyst Emmanuel Ghent and argue that his position is ultimately lacking in ethical injunction; requiring nothing of the self in relationship to the Other. It remains within the confines of the conventional, self-reflexive models that Levinas critiques. Following Levinas, we suggest that the therapist bear the burden of ethical responsibility by being exposed to the client’s ethical call and by responding out of a kenotic self-emptying.

Contextual Adult Life Span Theory for Adapting Psychotherapy with Older Adults

Our aging population is growing in size and diversity. To integrate different views on aging and make explicit the role of culture as a contextual factor, we modified Knight’s (Psychotherapy with older adults, 2004) Contextual, Cohort-based, Maturity, Specific Challenge (CCMSC) model of psychotherapy with older adults into the Contextual Adult Lifespan Theory for Adapting Psychotherapy (CALTAP). This article describes various components of the CALTAP, which serves as a meta-theoretical framework in guiding an integrated psychotherapy approach for the aging population. The interaction between environmental factors like cohort differences and socio-cultural contexts and individual factors such as maturation and age-related specific challenges not only shapes the experience and presentation of older adults in clinical settings, but also highlights special considerations in adapting psychotherapy for older adults.     

Relocating the Nexus of Psychopathology and Treatment: Thoughts on the Contribution of Erich Fromm to Contemporary Psychotherapy

Erich’s Fromm’s (1946, 1955, 1976) controversial critique of modern capitalism and its effects on psychic life is in many ways more relevant now than ever. By combining social, political, economic, and psychological determinants, Fromm’s theories provide mental health clinicians with a wider and more effective conceptualization of psychopathology than does the current medical model. While some of Erich Fromm’s basic assumptions are challenged in this paper, such as his view of human nature and the extent to which western society requires radical reorganization, Fromm’s work is seen as a useful catalyst for shifting the mental health field’s current paradigm of psychopathology to a more holistic and ecological perspective. Similarities between Fromm’s ideas and the therapeutic community model of G. DeLeon (2000) are noted, and a relevant individual case study is discussed.