Psychotherapy by reciprocal inhibition

Reciprocal inhibition is a process of relearning whereby in the presence of a stimulus a non-anxiety-producing response is continually repeated until it extinguishes the old, undesirable response. A variety of the techniques based on reciprocal inhibition, such as systematic desensitization, avoidance conditioning, and the use of assertion, are described in detail. Behavior therapy techniques evaluated on the basis of their clinical efficacy are found to have striking success over traditional psychoanalytic methods. Currently, more comparative studies are required which will validate the merit of behavior therapy in the psychotherapeutic field while experimental research should continue to refine the techniques.     

Discussion of Presentation by Joseph Newirth

Discussing Joseph Newirth's case from a modern Freudian perspective, I explore possible sources of the patient's degraded view of herself, her ambivalent feelings toward men, and her fears of sexuality. I also discuss the course of the treatment, noting that both the patient's progress and the core of her resistance centers on her complex relationship with her analyst. This has been the source of healing and of avoidance of her inner world of imagination and fantasy. I further suggest that active confrontation of the patient's defensive use of her relationship with her analyst would enhance the substantial gains that she has already made.     

Mother-Infant Psychotherapy Informed by Polyvagal Theory

This article illustrates the psychotherapeutic treatment of a 2-month-old male experiencing separation distress and problems in his regulatory system that were influencing the relationship with his mother. The baby was the product of a pregnancy complicated by maternal mental illness, homelessness, alcohol and drug exposure, lack of prenatal care, and a complicated delivery that required a 12-day hospital stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The mother-infant psychotherapy was carried out over a two-year period and demonstrates the sensitive care needed when working with an overaroused and fearful baby and the critical ways that holding the mother in mind allows her in turn to hold her baby in mind. In this situation, the therapist provided an emotionally attuned interpersonal therapeutic relationship and created features of safety in the environment that helped develop new models of trust. We report here on an innovative program that provides health, mental health, onsite childcare, parenting education, and in-patient substance abuse services to mothers who are pregnant and/or parenting infants in the first three years of life. The specific purpose of the article is to discuss the mother-infant therapeutic treatment of a constitutionally challenged baby who was over aroused and fearful, and that we consider serves as an example for showing the favorable ways that holding the mother in mind free her to be emotionally available to the infant.     

Benefits and Challenges of Conducting Psychotherapy by Telephone

Telephone-delivered psychotherapy has increased utility as a method of service delivery in the current world, where a number of barriers, including economic hardships and limited access to care, may prevent people from receiving the treatment they need. This method of service provision is practical and has the potential to reach large numbers of underserved people in a cost-effective manner. The aim of this paper is to review the state-of-the-art of telephone-delivered psychotherapy and to identify improvements and possible solutions to challenges. Results of randomized controlled trials indicate high client acceptance and positive outcomes with this method of delivering psychotherapy. Nonetheless, psychotherapists wishing to deliver psychotherapy by telephone face a number of challenges, including a lack of control over the environment, potential compromises of privacy and confidentiality, developing therapeutic alliance without face-to-face contact, ethical and legal issues in providing psychotherapy by telephone, handling crisis situations at a distance, and psychotherapist adjustment to conducting psychotherapy in an alternative manner. There remains a need for further research, including direct comparisons of face-to-face psychotherapy with telephone-delivered psychotherapy and feasibility of telephone delivery of psychotherapies other than cognitive behavioral therapy.     

Sexual Abuse of Women by Women in Psychotherapy

No abstract available for this article.     

Eros and Abstinence in Psychotherapy

In this article, the author elucidates the relationship between the psychotherapist's abstinence and the emergence of desire and erotic experience in the patient. Beginning with a brief account of the abrupt ending of a daseinsanalytic therapy, a therapy to which he again returns at the end of the article, the author examines the historical devlopment of the relationship between Eros and abstinence, first through an extensive review of the writings of Sigmund Freud and then through a review of various earlier and later views of this issue as psychoanalysis continued to develop. This review includes, in particular, some of the daseinsanalytic perspectives of Medard Boss. Following this historical analysis, the author then takes up a hermeneutic analysis of eros and abstinence, beginning with some reflections on the psychoanalytic phenomena of transference and countertransference and going on to an elucidation of eros and abstinence in relation to both ontical and ontological dimensions. The author concludes by returning to the clinical case with which he began, though with the perspective of his preceding analysis.     

Women and Anger in Psychotherapy

No abstract available for this article.     

Self-Disclosure in Psychotherapy

No abstract available for this article.