In this seminar we will explore Malan’s model of short term psychodynamic therapy. We will discuss the selection criteria and the clinical problems which are more suitable for this type of intervention. Valuable qualities of this perspective include the careful diagnosis; focus on a single aim; and the intensive working through of client’s issues in the transference relationship.
We often believe that all people who ask help are suitable for psychotherapy. However, in many cases, the problems confronting the person cannot be resolved through therapy alone. How do we investigate the suitability of a prospective client for psychotherapy?
What other resources should we look for to help this client? Are we the right person to help the specific client? What are the common mistakes made by therapists as they endeavour to help people?
Many individuals, because of difficult neonatal and infantile experiences, have not been able to ‘enter’ their body. Their physical ego, the kernel of the self, has been formed in a problematic way lasting till adult life and appearing as body dysphoria, physical distress, organic disease or psychosomatic disorders.
In this workshop we will examine the formation of the invisible membrane embracing the psychosoma during the first months of life and we will reflect on the negative outcome of an inadequate body-mind integration during childhood and adult life.
Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we occasionally fail our clients. We either get into a rut or the client, under the pretext of lack of money or time, leaves therapy prematurely.
In this workshop, we will examine the conditions indicating early in therapy that things may falter later on. Then we will see in actual clinical cases the impact of certain issues that are common in almost every treatment:
Self disclosure of the therapist
Client’s idealization of the therapist
The masochism of the therapist
Participants are welcome to bring their own cases for discussion.
Why do we fall ill? Why do we get the specific disease? This seminar will provide answers to these questions based on different theoretical perspectives: psychoanalysis (Franz Alexander, Francoise Dolto, Joyce McDougall) alternative medicine ( acupuncture and homeopathy) and contemporary research findings with patients.
The following diseases will be explored from a psychological perspective: coronary heart disease and hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, ulcerative colitis, ulcer migraine headaches and cancer.
The participants will also have the opportunity to explore experientially their personal symptoms.
Many therapists have discovered that inside an adult client there is a small child with his/her own needs trying to heal his/her wounds. In this seminar we will discuss how we can best approach this partly dissociated aspect of the client’s subjectivity and the problems usually encountered in this process.
Loss is an inevitable experience in human life and sometimes the after-effects of significant losses can touch much deeper layers of our psyche than those described by our favorite psychological theories.
We, as therapists, do our best to help clients work through their losses, but how many of those clients can actually process the loss?
In this seminar we will cover:
Different types of loss ( anticipated, traumatic, diffuse) and their respective effects.
Which clients have the capacity to work through their loss
The conditions that either facilitate either hinder the process of mourning.
