Peter Ehrenhaus is a professor of communication and writes very interesting things about silence and symbolic expression. He says that silence can be an object or an encounter. With an encounter meaning can arise in silence between the individual and the object experienced as silent. He is not a psychologist and presents his ideas in …
Silence in psychotherapy
Over the years there has been much written about silence in psychotherapy and most of the time in these articles and books silence means the absence of speech (Ehrenhaus 1988). A time when the client and therapist are not speaking to each other is defined as silence in psychotherapy. However to me this is not …
Regression – defence mechanism & natural human process
The redecision therapy use of regression Regression is the return to an earlier childhood phase of a persons psychological development. It can be both a defence mechanism and a natural human process. As a defence mechanism when a person feels anxiety they cope with it by again feeling and thinking like they were a …
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Contracting in psychotherapy
The problem with demand contracts is the client may just lie to you.
Evidence based psychotherapy
As you can see psychodynamic therapy does quite well.
Aversion therapy & implied communication in therapy
The goal is to stop the drug use but in the very nature of the treatment one is giving permission to take drugs. Same in the Redecision therapy I use
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Relational contact in the Parent interview
Again it will lead to a sense of feeling heard and feeling some level of relationship building with another person.
Assimilative psychotherapy
At some point one needs to switch from rejecting this part of self to an integration of it.
The prison psychotherapist
Never a dull moment when working in a prison and great training for one’s diagnostic skills of some quite unusual forms of psychopathology.
My unconscious perceptions of psychotherapy
There were three clients I was making appointments with for the next week and they were all very heavily pregnant women. That was all the dream was.
The vagaries of psychotherapy
Eventually he solves his own problem and has a plan for how to deal with it in the future. I have said very little and in essence been a spectator to his own processing and working it out for himself.
Psychotherapy and the pursuit of happiness
If one can accept their flaws and bad points that is a very good psychological state of mind to be in.
Gallows transaction – Part 2
I do know people like Bob Goulding always said there needs to be a good deal of laughter in therapy. Maybe he was saying this so as to reduce the gallows transaction effect.
Parallel process
One explanation for parallel process is empathy gone wrong.
The work life of a psychotherapist
We have all our fancy theories and techniques but for this type of client it’s just that simple. The person feels a connection with the therapist and that is what really counts.
Responding to client praise.
Psychological change is a very personal and intimate thing that can touch the very core of who we are. If a client reaches out to a therapist and seeks to acknowledge their role in what has been a very personal experience for them, maybe it is a discount not to do so
Three ways of using transference in therapy
The client is then asked to respond to the therapist, who is now seen as say mother, in a way they always wanted to, but never did as a child. For instance the client may have been angry at mother but never expressed it, or they only expressed it in a passive aggressive way.
The Demon sub personality (Aka Lillith)
The therapist needs to build a special kind of relational contract with it over a period of time, and regularly maintain that contact in the therapeutic process. One has to go along with its destructiveness at times which can require some very wily and shrewd therapeutic interventions.
The two sides of goodbye work
It seems safe to say that the natural human condition is to have quite a strong ambivalence about emotional intimacy in relationship.
“I want it but it scares me”.
Hence one could argue, a key component of grief or goodbye work, is dealing with this natural ambivalence about intimacy with another.
Psychotherapy of the antiscript stage of development
This is important from a therapeutic point of view in that the therapist is meant to guide the person to firstly understand the question they are asking and secondly assisting the person to gain some kind of answer to it.
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Testing in relationships
The same testing behaviour can happen in the therapeutic relationship. Any client is already in a vulnerable and emotionally open position in therapy. Or at least that is what will have to happen soon for the person to benefit from the therapy, or little will be achieved.
Psychotherapy & those who don’t fit
People are a diverse group. Maybe our psychological theories need to reflect that more so