Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Assessment in the Twenty-first Century – serie

Thirty five percent of persons who are provided psychotherapy do not benefit from treatment, or drop out of therapy prematurely because they fail to establish a working alliance with the therapist. To address this issue the volume presents a matrix of concepts and research illustrating how traumatic experiences during childhood result in the person developing rigid cognitive functions, emotional expressions and behaviors, interfering with the person participating constructively in relationships. Based on this research, the psychotherapy conducted with an adult, an adolescent, and a child are described to illustrate why and when the therapist should engage and participate with the patient in various body activities to stimulate particular meanings and emotions that promote flexibility in the patient’s cognition, emotions, and behaviors. These cases illustrate how cultivating this flexibility enables the patient to establish a working alliance with the therapist and resolve past traumatic experiences. The volume also describes a therapeutic model of techniques a therapist should follow when adult and adolescent patients fail to establish a working alliance, do not benefit from discussing and free associating, and when child patients do not benefit from play therapy.

Psychodynamics Commencing in Early Childhood: The Case for an Additional Tripartite Complex defines, delineates, and demonstrates the usefulness of an earlier variant of the Oedipus Complex, a complex first manifesting itself with the onset of separation-individuation and ending around the age of three. Of course, a child younger than three years of age has not matured to the degree of selfhood or become the psychically separate entity that, with usual maturation and development, are the attributes of the older child of the Oedipus complex, proper. Under these circumstances, the tripartite psychodynamics that are characteristic of and derived from the earlier period will differ from the better known triadic psychodynamics of Freud’s Oedipus complex, proper. This book presents clinical case studies psychological research and psychological understandings from other fields of endeavor that focus on and document psychodynamics of the complex of the earlier age period and their reverberations throughout life. The material that is presented in this book is theoretically and clinically significant, and the psychodynamics it elucidates has heretofore not been sufficiently recognized and appreciated.

In From Sign to Symbol: Transformational Processes in Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, and Psychology, Joseph Newirth describes the evolution of the unconscious from the psychoanalytic concept that reflected Freud’s positivist focus on symptoms and repressed memories to the contemporary structure that uses symbols and metaphors to create meaning within intimate, intersubjective relationships. Newirth integrates psychoanalytic theory with cognitive, developmental, and neuropsychological theories, and he differentiates two broad therapeutic strategies: an asymmetrical strategy that utilizes the logic of consciousness and emphasizes the differentiation of person, place, time, and causality in the world of objects, and a symmetrical strategy that utilizes the logic of the unconscious in the world of emotional, intersubjective experience. He presents multiple approaches to the use of these symmetrical therapeutic strategies, including the use of humor, dreams, metaphors, and implicit procedural learning, in transforming concrete symptoms and signs into the symbolic organizations of meaning. Examples from both psychotherapeutic practice and supervision are presented to illustrate the development of the capacity for symbolic thought or mentalization.

In From Sign to Symbol: Transformational Processes in Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, and Psychology, Joseph Newirth describes the evolution of the unconscious from the psychoanalytic concept that reflected Freud’s positivist focus on symptoms and repressed memories to the contemporary structure that uses symbols and metaphors to create meaning within intimate, intersubjective relationships. Newirth integrates psychoanalytic theory with cognitive, developmental, and neuropsychological theories, and he differentiates two broad therapeutic strategies: an asymmetrical strategy that utilizes the logic of consciousness and emphasizes the differentiation of person, place, time, and causality in the world of objects, and a symmetrical strategy that utilizes the logic of the unconscious in the world of emotional, intersubjective experience. He presents multiple approaches to the use of these symmetrical therapeutic strategies, including the use of humor, dreams, metaphors, and implicit procedural learning, in transforming concrete symptoms and signs into the symbolic organizations of meaning. Examples from both psychotherapeutic practice and supervision are presented to illustrate the development of the capacity for symbolic thought or mentalization.

Neurodivergent children, adolescents, and adults demonstrate both learning and attention challenges that contribute to academic, social, and workplace failures. The emotional consequences of these disorders can often include lowered self-esteem, pervasive feelings of shame, profound insecurity about academic skills, and a deep sense of vulnerability. This leads many individuals with neurocognitive difficulties to consult with psychotherapists for help in alleviating their psychiatric symptoms. Nechama Sorscher argues that it is therefore essential for clinicians to be mindful of the various types of learning disorders and their impact on the developing psyche while facilitating insight and awareness of these issues. Assessment and Intervention with Children, Adolescents, and Adults with Neurocognitive Challenges: A Psychodynamic Perspective provides an overview of the different types of learning disorders, reviews the literature on common psychological themes found in the psychotherapy of individuals with these disorders, and offers practical suggestions for treatment, as illustrated in case histories. This book discusses how to accurately assess and successfully intervene with children, adolescents, and adults with learning disabilities, attention disorders, and autism spectrum disorder.

In The Psychotherapy of Personality Disorders, Lisa J. Cohen introduces Emergent Systems Theory, an integrative model of the many different types of psychotherapy, with an emphasis on personality pathology. This model proposes five general levels of the mind/brain, each of which dates back to a different point in human evolutionary history and has its own distinct psychological functions and psychopathology. This book argues that formulating patients’ psychological difficulties in terms of the levels involved permits systematic selection of the most appropriate treatments and can also enhance communication across the mental health field.

In Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Uncertainty: Struggling with a Shadow of a Doubt, Moshe Marcus and Steven Tuber examine the structural and intrapsychic features of the self as presented within OCD compulsive doubting, and more broadly, within OCD compulsions. Marcus and Tuber further elucidate central object-relational paradigms within OCD doubting and suggest a broader framework that can be used to consider the interplay between both the cognitive as well as the affective components required to make judgments.