Visualizing Pain

Although Seneca often expresses a disdain for the body, vividly detailed evocations of bodily experience feature frequently in his writing. In particular, he presents the repeated imagining of anticipated pain and suffering (praemeditatio futurorum malorum) as an important psychotherapeutic technique. This strategy should be seen in the context of Stoic theories of perception and the embodied nature of emotion (theories that resonate in significant respects with findings in cognitive neuroscience). Yet Seneca’s approach is also profoundly colored by a perception of the relationship between imagination and emotion which lies at the heart of ancient rhetorical theory. While anticipating future misfortunes is sometimes presented as a means to dull anxiety, a method of cultivating stereotypically Stoic impassivity by rooting out negative emotions, Seneca also highlights the power of the vividly imagined scene of suffering to stimulate an ardent love of virtue, a positive emotion which plays a crucial role in the moral progress of the Stoic student.

To Be or Not to Be – Hamlet and the Psychotherapeutic Technique: About Therapeutic Alliance, Growth and Effective Therapy

It is possible to construct a helping alliance for the best results in therapy by keeping in mind this helpful process of therapy, starting with building an attachment which will be needed for the interactive differentiation of the therapy contract, goals, and the client’s own activity between the sessions, and finally using feedback at the end of each session. The therapeutic alliance will grow by changes, in crisis situations and thresholds within therapy. It is essential that we know the partners of the clients and let them know about us, in order to facilitate our clients’ growth and to lessen side effects, and that we include the interaction with the social environment of the clients, and finish with the feedback about the therapy process.

Psychotherapist Self-Disclosure

Psychotherapist self-disclosure is addressed as a potentially important psychotherapeutic technique. Different types of self-disclosure are explained, to include deliberate self-disclosure, unavoidable self-disclosure, and accidental self-disclosure, illustrating their potential value and benefits to clients and to the psychotherapy process. Self-disclosure is examined as a boundary issue and ethics issues relevant to the use of self-disclosure are addressed. Illustrative examples are provided and a decision-making process is provided to assist psychotherapists to utilize self-disclosure with clients in an ethically appropriate and clinically effective manner. Relevant factors to be considered in the decision-making process are reviewed to include cultural factors, treatment setting, and the client’s treatment plan. Ethical challenges relevant to having an online presence are addressed and potential pitfalls for psychotherapists to be cognizant of are shared. Recommendations for the ethical and clinically appropriate use of self-disclosure are provided.

Can memory erasure contribute to a virtuous tempering of emotions?

The paper deals with a perspective of Christian philosophy on artificial memory erasuse for psychotherapeutic purposes. Its central question is whether a safe and reliable technology of memory erasure, once it is available, would be acceptable from a Christian ethics point of view. The main facet of this question is related to the Christian ethics requirement of contrition for the past wrongs, which in the case of memory erasure of particulary troubling experiences and personal choices would not be possible. The paper argues that there are limits to the ethical significance of contrition in the writings of the leading Christian fathers on the theme (e.g. St. Thomas Aquinas), where excessive suffering and inability to forgive oneself for one?s actions is an impediment to the achivement of tranquility of mind and spiritual redemption, rather than a prerequisite for it. The paper thus concludes that there is no hindrance in principle from the Christian ethics point of view to pursuing a voluntary and selective memory erasure as a psychotherapeutic technique once a fully adequate technology is available.

Jacob Levy Moreno’s Psychodrama As a Work Technique For Treating Patients in Group and Individual Psychotherapy

Introduction. The basic purpose of this article is to present Jacob Levy Moreno’s psychodrama method as the psychotherapeutic technique useful in work with patients during individual and group psychotherapy. Material and Method: The author presents the analysis of case studies of patients treated in individual and group psychotherapy. He instances the examples of psychodramatic work on the stage as well as monodramatic and reports their importance in the process of patient psychotherapy. He discusses the effects of these act ivities in the context of changes in the emotional and interpersonal functioning of patients. Results: The given examples of monodrama and psychodramatic works illustrate the mechanisms of the changes offered by the method, e.g. insight, abreaction, acceptance of internal impulses, confrontation with the feelings of other people, training of alternative behaviors. In the article one can follow each subsequent step of analyzing intrapsychic conflicts of patients, which, thanks to the play on the stage, can be named and experienced by them. Conclusions: Psychodrama, used in the psychotherapeutic work of the group and in individual work with the patient (in the form of a monodrama), gives great opportunities to broaden the insight of the patient into very complicated internal mechanisms of conflicts and deficits. Psychotherapist - leader encourages patients to be creative and to spontaneous development of their blocked personality elements. The specificity of psychodrama is a relatively quick resolution of many years of ongoing conflict and permanent reparation of traumatic experiences, even from early childhood.

Time-Limited Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Child and adolescent anxiety psychodynamic psychotherapy (CAPP) follows psychoanalytic principles by addressing the unconscious meaning of the child’s symptoms, while employing a time-limited, twice-weekly frame, which affects technique. In Chapter 2, the authors illustrate how the therapist establishes a collaborative and empathic relationship with the child, identifies a central psychological dynamism early, and consistently refocuses on the presenting anxiety symptoms and the jointly identified psychological dynamisms. The authors describe variations in psychotherapeutic technique necessitated by the age-related capacities of the young patient. Important psychodynamic principles, such as transference, are described. Reflective functioning, which is the capacity to be reflective about one’s own mind and to envision mental states in others, is explained. Selective attention is paid to symptom-specific reflective functioning, which refers to the capacity to reflect on the specific anxiety symptoms and their meanings as an important mediator of change.