Search

The article "Psychotherapy as a Profession" by Michael B. Buchholz discusses the difficulty of talking or writing about psychotherapy, as it cannot be fully described. The author emphasizes that professional skill in psychotherapy is more than just theory, and that professional psychotherapeutic engagement can be defined as an intelligent form of tactful attentiveness. The text argues that it is not meaningful to equate professional action and research in psychotherapy. The authors advocate for understanding the difference between professional psychotherapy and scientific research, and argue that professional psychotherapists are not necessarily researchers and scientists. The text also discusses the importance of the personal relationship between therapist and patient in psychotherapy. [Extracted from the article]

With the new Psychotherapists Act a serious situation has arisen for psychoanalysis. One danger, technological medicalization (Buchholz 2017b, c; Buchholz and Kächele 2019), has often been referred to. A growing reliance on clinical psychology is still not very prominent (Slunecko 2021). How can psychoanalysis assert itself? It is proposed to devote more attention to questions of a) training of therapeutic personalities, b) stronger lifeworld contextualization, and c) paying much more attention to the original voice of patients in theory and case presentations. Loyalty to theory traditions does not solve any problems. It blocks sensitivity for social and other environments and produces withdrawal into self-preoccupation and a disturbing lack of irritability. The far too loyal attachment to theory traditions, to training analytical instructors and role models, supervisory practices and to questionable rules of treatment wards off the irritation, the overcoming of which would be a core task and discourages the next generation. Suggestions for this are given at the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presently, psychotherapy, as a professional field of clinical practice and training, faces tremendous changes. Scientific research needs to pinpoint areas of (practice-oriented) competence in psychotherapists to be acquired during university courses and postgraduate training. Qualitative approaches to scientifically assessing the field bring with them opportunities to meet the demands of doing justice to clinical practice. This article provides indications on quality criteria for trials and on ideal type formation as two ways of overcoming a false distinction between qualitative and quantitative or between single case and total population in process research. Also, proposals on how to conduct conceptual research and present the results are provided. Finally, a brief outline of the premises and methodology of conversation analysis is presented. Highlighting these different aspects follows the aim to present a general model of what happens in specific psychotherapeutic interactions and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperation in the treatment room is described more precisely exemplified by transcribed situations from psychoanalytical and depth psychological treatments. We differentiate various components of cooperation (forms, sequencings, functions, means) and compile considerations on the cognitive requirements for cooperation. In this way we hope to be able to formulate a contribution to improved teachability of therapeutic and particularly psychoanalytical competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives an overview of psychoanalytic process research, which brings to light the complexity of psychotherapy sessions. This complexity is so rich that many instruments intended to make the process measurable failed in the past because they initially used a strategy of complexity reduction. This method however did not help to further our understanding of the complexity involved. Three former presidents of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (Stiles, Hill, Elliot 2015) decided to solve the following equivalence paradox: many therapies work successfully though they all follow different theories, produce a heterogeneity of processes and often enough a misfit between what theories maintain to be a good process and their realization in the treatment room. As theories are often compared to maps, a driver would wonder which route to take. But therapists-as-drivers go undaunted - and nevertheless achieve their goals together with their patients. Norcross and Wampold (2018) found that good therapists invent new therapies with every new patient. They hypothesize that it is because of conversation. This is in accord with the 3 former presidents' proposal to return to detailed single case analyses including the micro-analytic power of conversation analysis of which a few insights are outlined in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we introduce the dissertation program PSAID (Postgraduate Studies for the Advancement of Individual Dissertations), conducted at the International Psychoanalytic University in Berlin, Germany. We tell stories about our experience: about a wish to sum up in a dissertation after long years of clinical practice what has been learnt in diving deeply into human experience; about the fear of losing one's identity when something new is to be learned, either planning a research study or conducting an interview that has not clinical but research-driven orientations; about the "biography of theory" - what motivates therapists to make a choice between psychoanalysis or cognitive-behavioral therapy; about how the experience of listening changes when you do not hear a voice but read a transcript and understand how many details allude to a relationship and influence your perception and thinking; about the experience of seeing a voice visualized on an audiogram; about summing up certain characteristics of "situations" in the consulting room. We propose not only to distinguish "online/offline" research, but to include "situationism" as a third concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A year later, Keira Bell, a 20-year-old former GIDS patient, surgically converted, sued her doctors and treatment providers in the British High Court because they had not sufficiently examined, diagnostically assessed, and responsibly treated her at that time, when she was still much younger. Gender dysphoria - A therapeutic model for working with children, adolescents and young adults: Susan Evans and Marcus Evans, Phoenix Publishing House: Bicester, UK, 2021, 259 p., €31.14 (paperback), ISBN 9781912691784 Marcus Evans became the "governor" of the Trust in 2018 and read the letter from concerned parents and then the report by David Bell - then the authors clearly see that they were becoming "whistle blowers" at the Tavistock. [Extracted from the article]

TPS are often self-reported by therapists. However, therapists sometimes feel entrapped in situations without knowing how and why. The microanalysis of situations can further the research process, methodological rules of situationism are outlined. Five TPS - implementing a new evaluation or a new metaphor, the decay of multimodality in speaking suicidality, ironically commenting the therapists professionalism - are presented in a detailed transcription. For two of them analysis of prosody is included. Solutions for a better handling of TPS are proposed. Finally, the role of clinical theories as “sensitizing" concepts is addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Often, conflicts cannot be solved; they have to be endured. A hidden idea behind solving conflicts and coming to reconciliation is growth, but what does growth mean? Here growth is understood as the use of different perspectives: at first different perspectives, then their complementary use, followed by their simultaneous use, and then achieving a state of resonating alignment. Finally, growth is described as gaining excentric positionality, introducing a concept from the philosopher Hellmuth Plessner. The author shows these steps from different to complementary to simultaneous use and resonating alignment not by clinical material, but by using the history of the theoretical evolution of psychoanalysis. Growth is an important concept not only for patients, but also for understanding our history. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The narrative interview is the method of choice for preserving historical experience. However, interviewing as social research method is seriously criticized for neglecting interview interaction. Conversation analysis (CA) could bring in some corrections in this debate. Using this method, the conversational practices in interviews for historical testimony, especially the «recipient design" of interviewee's utterances are examined. In 8 interviews for historical testimony from the years 2005-2006, not only the interviewer but also a third non-present other, an «overhearing audience" (Heritage 1985), is addressed. These findings are discussed in comparison to media interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we use the first ten minutes of an audiorecorded 28th psychoanalytic session in order to detect and describe a new therapeutic procedure which we call «Dancing Insight". The session is transcribed according to the standards of conversation analysis and is analyzed at three levels: first, a clinical analysis which leads to the interpretation that the analyst at two opportunities actively turns the table - speaking as if she were the patient. The clinical view can bring this observation in relationship to the concept of «model scenes" and «completing the scene" and some further findings from infant research. Second, the conversation analytic approach observes how the therapist does this maneuver and how the patient responds to it. A further analysis is directed to the «slots" where such a maneuver can be conducted with a natural flair and without any irony. Third, we complement the picture by an acoustic analysis of some prosodic features using PRAAT-software which shows some interesting patterns. At the beginning the patient speaks with a flat intonation, a prosodic property which we relate to affect isolation and its consequence, the lack of assertive commitment. The therapist manages to drag the patient out of this stance by assuming her role and she does this not only by the meaning of words, but also with prosodic means: She pronounces her turns at a «high plateau", the basic meaning of which we tentatively describe as «projection of the assertion to the partner". This is the procedure we call «dancing insight": The conversational move which leads to a change of metaphorical concepts and to a change of positioning is achieved by a prosodic technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hermeneutics (meaning, understanding) and scientism (causality, explanation) formed and still form opposites that make it difficult to adequately conceptualize self-determination and positioning of psychoanalysis in the theory of sciences. The first proposal is to view these opposites not as an either-or principle but more as the principle of complementarity as proposed in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. Then, the communicative turn of hermeneutics as thoroughly worked through by Habermas can be combined with results of empirical research from infant research and primatology so that a bridge between the two camps comes into sight. This bridge is stable if besides 'meaning' and 'causality' a third pole is established: sociality. Thus, a step forward to a triadic epistemology can be taken which is prepared here. Research on the microstructure of social interactions in psychoanalysis confirms the possibilities of including a social dimension which is extremely important but widely ignored in the theory of scientific debates between hermeneutics and science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freud opened the therapist's listening ear for the participation of the body in conversation (e.g. Dora and her handbag). In this way the treatment technique advanced a theory and showed practical ways how to overcome Cartesian mind-body dualism. At this time, psychoanalysis takes control of the task of reception of approaches to overcome this theoretical gap. In this article recent approaches in social science and social cognition research are outlined. They present possibilities not to play off the body against conversation but to listen to the body speaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Horst, the researcher, sometimes had to fight with the rumor that he was "not a clinician." On June 28, 2020, at 1:20 p.m., our friend and colleague Prof. Dr. Horst Kächele died in Ulm in the presence of his wife Beate, who had fallen ill herself, and his family. Horst was a clinician of the first order, with sensitivity, linguistic skill, wisdom, and tact. [Extracted from the article]

This study was conducted to analyze how male sexual offenders construct mental images of masculinity and femininity to provide insight into therapeutic treatment for such patients. The material examined in this study was comprised of 21 videotaped prison group therapy sessions in which the participating sexual offenders talked about their crimes and biographies. A qualitative data analysis software was used to apply a modified grounded theory methodology to the transcribed sessions. The resulting categories can be understood as descriptions of how the imprisoned men constructed gender images, and were based on three narrative levels: the structure of narration, the narrative positions in the story, and the interaction between the narrator and the other participants. According to the categories described in the narrative positions (the narrated self and the narrated significant male others), we constructed masculinity categorizations which corresponded to specific images of femininity (derived from the narrated significant female others). The constructions provided insight into the self-image of the narrator, as well as the accountability and positioning of himself and the other in regard to perpetrator–victim constructions. The study further revealed whether the participants either accepted or rejected responsibility and guilt for their crimes; this is essential for psychotherapeutic process and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author demonstrates, through family therapy case material, a connection between problems of the modern present and the three-generation effects of Nazism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of countertransference as a robust cornerstone of psychoanalytic work has gained momentum over the last five decades. It is a prime example of elastic concepts covering the range from microprocesses to global clinical phenomena. Empirical research on the treatment process has for a long time – and for good reasons – avoided even trying to measure countertransference. We report here on various efforts for approaching a methodology for measuring it. The paper organizes the various approaches in terms of stages of research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]