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The present paper discusses the advent and significance of erotic feelings in psychotherapy based on the intersubjective theory. It briefly reviews the coalescence of the tradition of avoidance of physical contact in psychotherapy, and the classical and contemporary approaches to erotic transference. A clinical case is presented in an attempt to expand the significance attributed to erotic feelings in therapy and ways of relating to it: in their intrapersonal and interpersonal meanings and in the dialectics between them. I will later discuss the father figure in feminine development and its transferential and metaphoric meaning against the background of a clinical case, and the importance of the erotic component in the processes of change and development. The paper includes mythological metaphors illustrating the issues in a cultural perspective that constitutes the traditional framework of thinking relevant to the issues which are the subject of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study described in this paper was to develop a method for measuring the therapeutic alliance from an intersubjective perspective and to evaluate the efficacy of the measure in predicting psychotherapy outcome. We conducted the study using data from 22 patient-therapist dyads engaged in a 30-session protocol of a brief relational therapy. The alliance measure chosen for this purpose was the short form of the Working Alliance Inventory. We used the subjective patient and therapist versions of the measure and created a correlation index representing the intersubjective congruence between patients and therapists on their ratings of the alliance. We examined the relations among the measures, as well as their predictive relation to an outcome measure. The results showed significant intercorrelations among the three alliance measures, suggesting that all captured aspects of the therapeutic alliance. In addition, all three measures were significantly predictive of outcome, with the correlation index appearing more powerful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the classical concept and the use of the 'corrective emotional experience' in psychotherapy is described. This concept is not widely accepted within the standpoint of contemporary psychoanalytic psychotherapy and object relations theories. It has an unfavorable reputation. However, this paper does not advocate discarding this therapeutic idea and action because it does have therapeutic value. The case is made that the search for the bad object, and patient's reenactment of early experiences as they had been, is a corrective emotional experience in that it is a reparative experience. Furthermore, the search for the bad object is necessary for attachment. In addition, the point is made that patients find and create the object, therefore, the corrective emotional experience must be viewed as something that patients find rather than what therapists do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]