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.
A major challenge for any skills-oriented intervention is the issue of treatment generalization. Psychotherapists cannot just “train and hope” for transfer. In this presentation, Dr. Meichenbaum will discuss and demonstrate what needs to be done before, during and after interventions to make them more effective. He will discuss specific steps that psychotherapists should take to increase the likelihood of maintenance and generalization across settings and across response domains.
EMDR has been used worldwide over the past decade as an empirically validated trauma treatment. During that time, it has become clear that it is possible to simultaneously alleviate suffering, help stop the cycle of violence, and address the devastating effects of trans-generational transmission. The clinical implications for simple symptom reduction versus personal growth and resiliency will be explored.
Dr. Kernberg will present prognostically unfavorable indications for a psychodynamic psychotherapy of narcissistic patients, and the management of the corresponding difficulties. The description of general characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder, clinical syndromes including the diagnosis, and general principles of psychodynamic therapy for them will compliment this presentation.
Psychotherapy, an originally private medical procedure, faces two immediate challenges: 1) an asocial pharmaceutical ethos and 2) its own populist success, which now call out for a more inclusive format. The latter represents a growing option for life-long large groups tapping the innermost sensibilities of people and creating the embodiment of belonging.
Revolutionary research in neuroscience and functional genomics documents show experiences of 1) Novelty, 2) Environmental Enrichment, and 3) Exercise (both mental and physical) can optimize gene expression, brain plasticity and mindbody healing during therapeutic hypnosis and meditation.
This presentation addresses how otherwise good people can do cruel things. They do so through selective disengagement of moral self-sanctions from inhumane conduct. At the behavior locus, worthy ends are used to sanctify harmful means by social and moral justification. At the agency locus, people obscure personal responsibility by displacement and diffusion of responsibility. At the outcomes locus, the detrimental social effects of one’s actions are ignored, minimized, or disrupted. At the victim locus, perpetrators dehumanize and blame recipients for bringing the maltreatment on themselves. These mechanisms operate at both individual and social systems levels. Disengagement of moral agency is illustrated in the workings of the corporate world, terrorism, the use of military force, application of the death penalty, and in ecological destruction that is heating the planet and making it less habitable.
DSM-V will likely organize groups of disorders, including emotional disorders, along some as yet undecided dimensions. One possible scheme will be presented that collapses current DSM-IV emotional disorders into a single unified consideration of the dimensional severity of fundamental temperaments and key features shared, to some extent, by most emotional disorders with implications for psychological interventions.
Science measures, art impacts. We will study methods of impact used in various arts, including painting, music, writing, movies and dance. These methods can be applied in therapy where they can provide impact, making clinical work more experiential, more effective. A model will be offered and explained.
An expanded understanding of the suicidal urge, and reasoning, belongs to the capability of any therapist, since suicide is always a human potential. The therapist needs to come to terms with his/her own suicidal urges, fears and fantasies, and ideas of death as well. Objective reports – diagnosis, demographics, age groups, psychological situation, social history, personal styles, etc. may or may not help the practitioner in encountering the client’s risk of suicide.