Evidence-based care is still the future of mental and behavioral health intervention, but not in the form of protocols for syndromes which has finally collapsed of its own weight. This talk is about what is arising in its place. I argue that process-based therapy is the logical next step in the evolution of evidence-based care: evidence-based processes linked to evidence-based procedures that alleviate the problems and promote the prosperity of people. Using the work on psychological flexibility as a foil, I explore how process-based therapy can help dissolve some of the long standing differences between the various wings of psychotherapy, and liberate the practices of practitioners who value an evidence-based approach.
It has been 50 years since General Systems Theory revolutionized psychotherapy. Yet it never became a real science, and the therapies it produced were either never evaluated or, when studied, produced only weak effects. We can now scientifically complete general systems theory and show that the new theory does result in highly effective couples and family therapy.
Gestalt therapy and Ericksonian hypnotherapy are experiential methods of change. In combination they can be synergistic. Psychotherapy is best when clients have a first-hand experience of an alive therapeutic process. Such dynamic empowering experiences pave the way for dynamic understandings. Drs. Polster and Zeig will engage with each other and the participants to examine commonalities and differences in their work.
So many books and seminars have emerged over the last decade with discovering one’s “purpose” as their theme. What are the cultural and historic reasons for this, given the unique shifts and challenges of our time? How do we engender the passion for the possible in our human development while discovering what that “possible” is? Is it even possible to become an artist of destiny, capable of decoding the patterns, clues, and relationships that point you to a mystery that cannot be known directly? Ultimately when it comes down to our fascination with purpose, are we fooling ourselves or are we present at the birth of an opportunity that exceeds our imagination.
Huge numbers of people want to KNOW their lives as much as they want to CHANGE. This need to KNOW, long overshadowed in therapy by pathology, is evident every day in: ordinary conversation, the arts, the mindfulness movement and religion. History now calls for therapy’s attention to basic themes of living through the design of Life Focus Communities.
Neurotic disorders dominated the landscape of psychopathology for almost a century before dying a sudden and traumatic death in 1980 with the publication of the DSM III. Now researchers delineated empirically supported common dimensions shared by all anxiety, mood, and related emotional disorders, including higher order temperaments, mood distortions, and extensive patterns of avoidance. In this presentation Barlow suggests a new integrated diagnostic scheme and the identification of psychological treatment principles targeting temperament directly.
It is important for therapists to fully evaluate the entire clinical picture when treating the trauma victim. This includes not only the overt symptoms directly associated with the traumatic event, but potential problems in relationships and deficits in sense of self. Ultimately, it is important to address and foster health of body, mind, emotion and spirit. Case examples, research and client videos will be used to illustrate the procedures and comprehensive treatment effects that foster personal and relational development.
Dr. Kernberg proposes that the DSM-V proposal is a helpful advance in the understanding of personality disorders, in spite of internal inconsistencies in its “hybrid model” basis. At the bottom, the psychiatric research community is struggling with a lack of an integrated conception of the development and structure of the personality.
Dr. Minuchin will show segments from a first session he conducted with a family, highlighting the concepts that underlie the techniques; the ways that he, as the therapist, assess his interventions; and the impact the family has on him.
Ms. Ackerman will be speaking about love in a time of illness, something she has lived with for many years, and has written about in her most recent book, One Hundred Names for Love. One day, Ackerman’s 74-year-old husband, a gifted author and professor, suffered a savage stroke. When he regained awareness he was afflicted with “global aphasia”—total loss of language—and could utter only a single syllable: “mem.” The standard therapies yielded only frustration. Diane soon found, however, that by harnessing their deep knowledge of each other, and her understanding of language and the brain, she could guide Paul back to the world of words.