This workshop focuses on identifying core beliefs and themes in couples and families that are constraining change. Creative use of the interview and interventions, including symbols, metaphors, language, fantasies and rituals to point a direction for change will be demonstrated.
Methods for training therapists customarily are directed to developing cognitive abilities. Using Milton Erickson as a model, an alternate, experiential approach is offered. The "evoking style" of the therapist determines the outcome of the treatment more than the theoretical and clinical methods to which the therapist ascribes.
The evolution of psychotherapeutic methods over the past 200 years from Mesmer through the psychoanalytic schools, behaviorism and current cognitive psychology tells a fascinating tale of our evolving understanding of human nature. In this address we will trace the development of fundamental techniques such as suggestion, free association, active imagination, gestalt dialogue, focusing, Erickson's indirect approaches and what I now call "The Basic Accessing Question."
Anyone can perform brief or short-term therapy, but unless pivotal issues are addressed, the treatment will, at best, be too narrow and restricted. It is essential to employ empirically established methods whenever possible, but also to have a framework and rationale for on-the-spot inventiveness. This Invited Address will explain how to be precise and targeted while also ensuring that interactive healing processes are put into effect.
The author traces the evolution of psychodynamic theory over the past fifty years and demonstrates how various individuals and schools of thought have contributed to increasing conceptual clarity despite significant continuing differences. Along with these theoretical advances, there have been important changes in analytically-oriented therapeutic techniques.
Cognitive therapy was originally developed for the treatment of Depression and Anxiety. Since its early beginnings various clinicians and investigators have extended its use to a wide variety of disorders and populations. Systematic outcome studies have demonstrated its efficacy not only in the garden variety of disorders such as Depression, Anxiety and Panic but also in medical disorders such a low back pain, diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome and chronic hypertension.
In the early decades of the 20th century Freud's mastery of the craft of presenting a case enthroned a belief that anxiety disorders were caused by repressed emotional complexes and that recovery required the restitution of repressed ideas. This belief dominated psychotherapeutic practice, and even though little was to be seen in the way of success, any alternative was treated with scorn. Mid-century studies of experimental neuroses showed that these disturbances were the consequence of the learning of maladaptive anxiety and could be overcome by systematic counteraction by other emotions.
Zeig (1995) demonstrates the Ericksonian approach to psychotherapy while working with Carol, a woman whose nail-biting habit is rooted in anxiety. After gathering information on her personal history, Zeig helps Carol utilize her values and history to affect change. The process is both humorous and dramatic. After working to change associations linked to the problem behavior, Zeig offers Carol an ordeal that will produce a "guaranteed cure." Hypnosis is offered as the "dessert", rather than the main course. Ericksonian approach to psychotherapy.
How does one master the practice of psychotherapy? Should training emphasize theory, technique, or research? What about the personal growth of the clinician? We will identify seven essential "postures" through a series of graduated, Psychoaerobics exercises. Attendees will participate in growth games and group hypnosis to explore the merging of discipline and spontaneity that occurs in the most artful and effective clinical work. The program focuses on refining the therapist's lenses (perception), muscles (therapeutic power), heart (compassion), and hat (social role).
Educational Objectives:
(1) List three therapist postures that were especially well-developed in Erickson.
(2) Given a case, describe how to use a Psychoaerobic exercise.