Quick summary: Transference = when you transfer an emotion meant for one person onto a different person. Transference is unconscious = the person is not aware that they are doing it (though they can be made aware). Transference happens in psychotherapy when a client places an emotional reaction that is related to someone in his or her personal life onto the therapist (ex. the client claims to feel belittled by the therapist when in actuality the client feels belittled by his/her father… transference can occur before the therapist has a chance to “do” anything to incite the given emotional reaction). The client believes that the therapist is the source of their emotional reaction when in fact the emotion has nothing to do with the therapist, as the therapist was generally not present when the emotion was initially created.
Category Archives: Therapy Explained, Simplified, and Un-Jargoned
Structural family therapy summary
Quick Summary: I am providing a summary of Structural Family therapy. I will define all relevant terms and offer an explanation as to what structural therapy might typically look like.
Tips for getting your Attachment needs met in your adult relationships
meeting the needs of your partner is a great way of meeting your own needs… having your partner meeting your needs is a great way for them to meet their own needs… meeting your own needs is a great way to make yourself more able to meet the needs of others… meeting the needs of a relationship meets individual and collective needs at the same time…when the needs of a group and the individuals that make up that group are met, all people involved tend to feel happier and healthier.
Do Therapists get Therapy? | Controlling bias and counter-transference in counseling
Quick summary: Many psychotherapy programs mandate that their students receive their own psychotherapy services… in my opinion it should be a requirement for all psychotherapists. Therapy is an effective way for a therapist to resolve issues such as personal bias, prejudice, ruminating, and emotional reactivity so that they can be fully present and non-judgmental with their own clients. Counter-transference is a term that dates back to Freud… Instead an in-depth explanation of the phenomenon let me put it this simply… Counter transference is when a therapist projects their own stuff (unresolved issues) onto the client… the therapist is not generally conscious of the fact that they are doing so.
How do you find the right therapist for you?
Quick summary: To find a therapist listen to your gut… just like most things in life your intuition tends to be correct… if it feels like a therapist can be helpful to you… then they probably will be. The research has found that the therapeutic relationship is the most important component to successful therapeutic outcomes… in short, if you don’t like, trust, or feel empathized for by your therapist then the therapy is not likely to be effective. Also it is theoretical adaptability and not rigidity which has been correlated with successful therapists – this means that researchers such as Scott Miller (http://www.scottdmiller.com/) have found that successful therapists are those who adapt the therapy to the specific needs of the clients instead of doing things the same way for every client for their entire career (this is why experience doesn’t always effect outcome… many people in all fields do the same less effective thing for their whole career as they resist change or adaptation) .
‘The Good Enough Sex Model’ (Metz and MaCarthy 2007) – a review and summary
Quick summary: I am offering a review of – Michael E. Metz; Barry W. McCarthy. The “Good-Enough Sex” model for couple sexual satisfaction. Sexual and Relationship Therapy; August 2007; Volume 22 No. 3 Pages 351 – 362 – this is by far my favorite article of the subject of human sexuality… I am very thankful to the authors for putting this wonderful piece together. I use the information from this article all the time with my clients… If you want to help your self or your clients to have more sexual satisfaction within a relationship I would highly recommend you attain this article.
The Science behind Emotional Intelligence: literature review
Quick overview: The studies I reviewed were basically trying to find a consistent definition of emotional intelligence so that the topic could be scientifically investigated. The researches end up concluding that emotional intelligence became so ‘trendy’ so quickly that the theory was never able to ground itself with a consistent definition… in all the definition that the authors found, there was not a definition that lent itself to research. The definitions of emotional intelligence were too broad and the topic could not be broken down into observable and measurable variables. The studies that I investigated suggest that it is important to teach people skills that help people to be more empathetic, self regulating, thoughtful and compassionate etc… they were not arguing the validity of the importance of what society has come to define as ‘emotional intelligence,’ instead they were suggesting that emotional intelligence lacks of consistent definition…The authors maintain that it is hard to say what the value of emotional intelligence is to society when there is no way of Cleary articulating what emotional intelligence is.
Narrative therapy: the externalization of perception
Quick summary: By talking with a therapist and re-experiencing emotions, thoughts and emotionally significant experiences, a client can show his/herself that occurrences can be narrated and therefore separated from the concept of self… narration is freedom as we find ourselves to be the author of our own reality. Resiliency naturally emerges as our identity ceases to be determined by the plot of our lives… we are no longer automatically controlled by the plot… instead we are the author… we choose the conclusions of our conflicts.
Michele Weiner Davis’s ‘Divorce Busting’ – a response
Michele is applying a brief solution-focused intervention specifically to the issue of avoiding divorce (I enjoyed the consistency in that her book is literally and figuratively brief and solution focused).
Solution Focused Therapy simplified
Quick summary: Solution focused in based on the idea that if you get people to start solving and to stop over analyzing the problem they will be more likely to reach a resolution in the present and they will be more likely to seek out solutions or to put the majority of there perceptual energy towards solutions in the future. In short if you focus on problems – you live within problems… if you focus on solutions – you live within solutions. I have outlined techniques to help people to use this method.
Empathy – nature and nurture
Quick summary: Empathy comes from nature and from nurture… from perceived positive and negative experiences. Empathy is something which is advantageous to the social human animal… there are many ways of augmenting this ability.
A subtle difference between Narrative and Cognitive psychotherapy
Quick Summary: Narrative and Cognitive therapy both help people to think about their world a bit differently. Cognitive therapy helps people to look at and to change disruptive beliefs and Narrative therapy helps people to put more attention on the positive storylines that make up their reality. Both hold that positive thoughts and a positive […]
'narrative means to theraputic ends' – book summary and review
Quick summary: Below is a book review for ‘Narrative means to therapeutic ends’ written by Michael White and David Epston. I use this opportunity to highlight the major themes of Narrative therapy in general. This is a great book!
Rogerian (or Person Centered) therapy summary
Rogers maintains that if a therapist offers a setting in which he/she is genuine, empathetic and can offer unconditional positive regard to the client, then the client will naturally grow into an effective, affectionate, empathetic, accepting, self-aware, secure and happy person.
Postmodernism – making an ‘out there’ philosophy useful
Quick summary – By allowing yourself to investigate how your relationships, actions and emotions are governed by your perceptions you may find that by offering yourself a freedom of perception you can change the way in which you are impacted by your reality. – By using open-mindedness and an adaptability in relation to your beliefs and ways of perceiving, you free yourself from patterns of seemingly automatic reaction. Postmodernism suggests that reality does not exist… it is a construct of your belief system… a radical postmodernist would say that if you believed that you could walk through a wall, then you could walk through a wall… perhaps this is not particularly helpful to the masses, but what if we took this down a notch… what if you allowed yourself the freedom to perceive a situation differently so as to reduce your discomfort related to the subject? What would be the benefits of letting go of some of your deterministic thinking (‘when this happens I must feel this’ ‘If I did that I would be bad’ ‘I should_______ because _______)? Sometimes we trap ourselves in suffering by rigidly holding on to what we label to be objectivity… postmodernism suggests that objectivity does not exist – there are not facts. Perhaps if we took a small piece from postmodernist thinking we could all say that “I don’t have to feel or behave in a set way… my reactions do not have to be predetermined… I have a consciousness which is evolved enough to allow me to live without being controlled by my environment” – I can choose to perceive or believe my reality to be different. Embracing your subjectivity is an emancipation from atomization.
Gestalt Psychotherapy – an overview
For this post I will give an overview of Gestalt psychotherapy, which is popular for both its’ experiential nature and its large amount of techniques.
the 7 things you need to create meaningful change – precursors of change
Quick summary: Dr. Fred Hanna did some excellent work on identifying the variables which must be in place in order for a person to experience change. He not only studied these 7 variables he also came out with specific techniques to encourage those variables into existence. according to him the seven precursors of change are A sense of necessity – a willingness or readiness to experience anxiety – awareness – confronting the problem – effort of will towards change – hope for change – and social support for change.
Attachment – why we say and emote one way when we truly feel and think a different way
Quick summary: I was just re-reading some articles on Emotionally Focused Therapy and on Attachment Theory and I thought I might offer a noteworthy piece of information. Often we say what we don’t mean and we offer an emotional response which is different from how we truly feel in order to protect ourselves from attending to our attachment concerns or fears… ok, so what does that mean? Quite simply it is easier to attack, avoid, defend or distract than it is to allow yourself to be vulnerable and to express your vulnerability concerning an important relationship… it is easier to be mad than it is to be sad… very often anger and emotional withdrawal are very effective means of distracting yourself from your sadness or your fear. Vulnerability arrives when we acknowledge that we hold fear about losing relationships which are important to us… Relational bliss lies within the honesty of allowing yourself to acknowledge your vulnerability in a supportive and empathetic relationship.
The Talking Cure for Trauma – holding freedom – you are the lotus
Quick overview: There are many aspects to the trauma recovery process such as support, empowerment, finding new meaning, and engaging in techniques which help to ‘rewire’ the brain. In this blog I will talk about the benefits of talking to a trusted, supportive and safe person such as a therapist (or to your loved ones or to a group of survivors with the assistance of a therapist). Talking about a traumatic incidence in a safe and supportive setting can free a person to experience repressed emotions (emotions affect us whether we are conscious of their existence or not), to make new meaning of the occurrence, and to become empowered by his/her ability to take control over the subject.
* You dictate your own reality through the stories
‘Empirically based practice’ has been proven irrelevant to therapy outcomes – empirically
Quick summary: check out www.scottmiller.com -With all the political talk about healthcare reform sometimes we can miss the idea of reforming the healthcare which is already in place. The current trend in psychotherapy is and has been (for about a decade) to find a ‘one size fits all’ ‘empirically based or evidence based intervention’ which can be standardized and implemented consistently by all mental health practitioners… sounds somewhat reasonable in theory especially if psychotherapy is to be looked at as a purely medical intervention. So what is the problem? Ironically scientific investigation has proven that the evidence-based trend is unhelpful (the trend will not improve therapeutic outcomes – note: outcomes were already very good before the trend)… and having worked within a mental health center I would suggest that the trend is horribly hurtful as it wastes an unthinkable amount of money, time, and emotional and physical energy. Whoever came up with this trend seemed to overlook all the science related to therapeutic outcomes, which show (and had shown even prior to the evidence based movement) that the technique and the theory used by the therapist is almost irrelevant to successful psychotherapy outcomes (some studies find no relevance others suggest theory and technique accounts for about 8% of outcome).Therapy will not advance if it is continued to be managed as such… fortunately there is exciting research about what does impact outcomes – feedback and adaptability. Would you prefer a therapist who used one way of helping everyone or a therapist who specifically catered their therapy to serve the specific and unique needs of each individual client? Is there one universal answer to the question, “how can I help you,” as it is related to therapy?