Researching a client's experience of preconceptions of therapy - A discourse analysis

This paper uses discourse analysis to look at clients' preconceptions of therapy, through the presentation of a case study. Further findings suggest that discourse analysis may be a useful approach to helping psychotherapists and counsellors as part of their practice.     

Eugene O'Neill's Hughie and the grandiose addict

This paper offers a view on the role of grandiosity in addicted individuals - its self-protective and self-sustaining functions. Starting with a discussion of a fictional gambler, as described in a play by Eugene O'Neill, it continues with a discussion of the dynamic of aggrandizement, drawing on theoretical literature.     

Psychodynamic counsellor training integrating difference

Abstract

Psychodynamic counselling has been criticized for being inflexible, authoritarian, antiquated and unresponsive to the issues of modern-day society. Psychodynamic counsellor training is sometimes seen as a poor relation of ‘proper’ psychotherapy therapy training. This article is written by two psychodynamic counselling course trainers who have wresded with the above criticisms and who have striven to deliver a training course that is coherent in its adherence to a psychodynamic counselling model but which embraces equal opportunities issues and takes account of a diverse society. The article focuses on ways in which sexual identity, race and culture are integrated into the course curriculum and indeed into the course philosophy and community. Traditional psychoanalytic interpretations of homosexuality are challenged and multicultural counselling ideas are merged with psychodynamic counselling theory and skills.     

Getting lost

This paper seeks to explore the process, challenges and journey of setting up counselling within a boys’ public school setting, as an independent practitioner. It looks at the structure and way in which the service was set up and what had to be changed and adapted as time went on. The school had a strong reputation for pastoral care but had come to recognise that there were some issues that it was neither possible nor appropriate for school staff to deal with. So, whilst the school could and did provide containment for many of its pupils, there were those who got lost or were outside of the culture. This seemed to get reflected in my own experience. Setting up counselling in a school is not straightforward, and like the process of therapy itself, it takes time and is not a linear process. Although the service grew steadily, there were factors that led to my finally resigning from the post – I also got lost in the system. There is also a comparison with setting up a service under the auspices of an organisation at the same time.     

Personhood of the Therapist in Couples Therapy

SUMMARY

Integrity Therapy (Lander, 1986; Lander & Nahon, 1992a, 1995a; Mowrer, 1961b, 1964a) views the personhood of the therapist as the very essence of therapy. By meeting the deepest part of the therapist with the deepest self of individuals in therapy, a healing process unfolds which opens up the healing potential of both the individuals and the couple. This article offers couple therapists and other mental health professionals an Integrity Therapy perspective of the personhood of the therapist and its therapeutic potential for helping couples in distress to reclaim their personhood. Two aspects of the Integrity Therapy approach which play a critical role in enhancing therapists' use of their personhood in the therapeutic process are explored: (a) the use of therapist self-disclosure, and (b) therapists' awareness and therapeutic use of counter-transference issues.     

Children's and adolescents' intuitive judgements about distributive justice: Integrating need,effort, and luck

This study investigated the principles that children and adolescents rely on when allocating a resource fairly. In a series of three experiments, 51 Swiss children (aged 7 and 9 years) and 309 German children (aged 6, 9, and 15 years) participated. A different situational context was presented in each experiment, where luck, need and effort of two protagonists were systematically varied. Primary-school children relied mainly on need when making distributive justice judgements. Effort became more prominent as the allocation principle in adolescence. Equality occurred rarely in all age groups. Integrational capacity and the ability to differentiate between the three situational contexts increased from childhood to adolescence. The data suggest the conclusion that the development of distributive justice decisions has both generalized and context-specific components.     

动作记忆SPT优势效应的理论探讨

操作条件下的记忆效果好于语词条件下记忆效果的现象被称为动作记忆SPT效应。以往研究先后提出非策略加工、多通道加工、动作编码及情景整合理论来解释SPT效应,但这些理论解释仍存在矛盾和分歧,并阻碍了当前动作记忆领域的研究进展。为了解决目前的理论困境,本文详细地阐述了各理论的核心内容、发展历程及其存在矛盾和分歧的原因,并提出应以加工过程与加工对象相结合的视角来建立新的理论模型,以进一步促进实证研究的展开。     

眼动分析技术在句子理解研究中的应用*

句子理解是阅读研究中的一个重要部分。研究者采用了不同的手段和任务对这一问题进行了长期的研究,其中,眼动分析技术是一种行之有效的手段。本文从句子理解的三个阶段(视觉信息的提取,句子中的词汇识别和句子整合),探讨了眼动分析技术在句子理解研究中的优势作用。在此基础之上,提出了未来使用眼动分析技术进行句子理解研究需要注意的几个问题。     

Psychoanalytic inpatient psychotherapy of depression – Two naturalistic samples throughout the course of a decade

Background: While the general effectiveness of psychodynamic inpatient psychotherapy has been established, very few studies have specifically investigated the effectiveness of psychodynamic inpatient treatment of depression, though depressed patients represent the largest group of inpatients.

Method : This study investigated two naturalistic samples of depressed patients regarding treatment outcome as well as clinical and treatment characteristics. Patients were treated in a psychoanalytical psychosomatic hospital unit. Data was collected from 2000 to 2002 (N=234) and from 2008 to 2010 (N=514). Data was acquired at admission and discharge.

Results: The findings reveal high pre-post effect sizes for symptom reduction (SCL-90-R), general functioning (GAF) and medium changes of interpersonal problems (IIP). The improvement on the IIP was significantly higher for patients with comorbid personality disorder. Based on therapist ratings, the sample treated from 2008-2010 showed higher levels of impairment on several levels: chronic, complex, functional (GAF) and structural (OPD).

Conclusion: Findings indicate that patients show substantial short-term benefit following psychoanalytic inpatient psychotherapy, as practiced under naturalistic conditions. Open questions remain regarding the long-term nature of these benefits and the possible influence of placebo-effects.