{"title":"Inkblots, Psychotherapy and the Tavistock Clinic","authors":"Janet Sayers","doi":"10.1111/bjp.12921","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bjp.12921","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The purpose of this article is to recount the early history of the Rorschach's inkblots test in Europe and the USA; its subsequent application in highlighting the ill effects on children of bombing during the Second World War; its wartime use in selecting military personnel; its post-war use in selecting patients for psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic in London and subsequent decline in this use of Rorschach's inkblots in favour of focus on the psychotherapy patient's transference experience of the psychotherapist treating them. The article ends with evidence of interest, beyond psychotherapy, in Rorschach's inkblots and with the implications of this for the author's principal conclusion regarding the value of these inkblots in evoking the free association and conversation crucial to psychotherapy.</p>","PeriodicalId":54130,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Psychotherapy","volume":"40 4","pages":"455-466"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjp.12921","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142435919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alan Baban, Thomas Hillen, Giles W. Story, Wendy Burn, Vivienne Curtis
{"title":"A Qualitative Study Focussing on the Acquisition of Psychotherapy Competencies in Core Psychiatry Training and the Effect of Covid-19","authors":"Alan Baban, Thomas Hillen, Giles W. Story, Wendy Burn, Vivienne Curtis","doi":"10.1111/bjp.12919","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bjp.12919","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Acquiring competence in psychotherapy is a mandatory part of psychiatric training in the UK. Within their first 3 years of ‘Core Psychiatry’ training, doctors are expected to deliver both short-term and long-term psychotherapy treatments, supervised by the local Medical Psychotherapy tutor. During the Covid-19 pandemic, these treatments and their supervisions were carried out remotely. This pan-London qualitative research study, commissioned by the Health Education England London School of Psychiatry, aimed to explore trainees' and trainers' experiences of the psychotherapy curriculum within Core Psychiatric training, as well as their experiences of remote work during the pandemic. Seventeen participants were interviewed (out of 19 who came forward), including both trainees and trainers working within the London region. Thematic analysis of the transcripts of the semi-structured interviews identified five main themes with associated sub-themes. The results suggest that trainees found their psychotherapy experience to be enriching. However, there is work to be done around barriers and anxieties faced by trainees, for instance concerning the impact of patient drop out on training progression. Remote work posed additional issues for trainers and trainees in addressing psychotherapy competencies, with feelings of disconnection and loss being prominent.</p>","PeriodicalId":54130,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Psychotherapy","volume":"40 4","pages":"549-569"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142435874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Psychodynamic Psychotherapy for Time Distortion in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder","authors":"Matthew Rinaldi","doi":"10.1111/bjp.12920","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bjp.12920","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Psychodynamic psychotherapy does not feature in current treatment guidelines for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the United Kingdom. However, there is some psychoanalytic understanding of the disorder, which is corroborated in current neuroscientific theory, and supports clinicians in thinking beyond the behaviourally biased diagnosis and treatment models. One of the core features of ADHD is distortions in chronoception. This clinical paper therefore explores the psychoanalytic and neuroscientific theories of time perception as a way of exploring a discrete element of the complex idea of executive functioning more generally. It supports therapists approaching such executive dysfunction and to reconsider the treatment guidelines. A case example is used to explore how a transference-, affect- and relationally-focussed therapy can effect lasting change for people with ADHD in a way that behavioural and medication approaches do not. It is argued that such an intervention can improve oscillatory attention between subjective- and objective-time and increase the capacity to self-contain emotions. This brings patients into alignment with reality and restarts their psychic development towards themselves, others, the parental couple and grieving, which stalled in infancy. The internalised schema of the 50-minute therapy session also provides a frame of reference for future tasks.</p>","PeriodicalId":54130,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Psychotherapy","volume":"40 4","pages":"530-548"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142435032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rhett-Lawson Mohajer, Sydney Dick, Natalia D. Salinas, Tara Rava Zolnikov
{"title":"To Eat, or Not to Eat? A Psychoanalytic View on the Food-Parent","authors":"Rhett-Lawson Mohajer, Sydney Dick, Natalia D. Salinas, Tara Rava Zolnikov","doi":"10.1111/bjp.12917","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bjp.12917","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Research shows eating disorders increase the mortality rate: anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate and yet an accurate morbidity rate of bulimia nervosa remains hidden. However, research on the endopsychic structural dynamics that perpetuate in patients with eating disorders is scant. This essay depicts the use of Fairbairn's theory of endopsychic personality structure in understanding anorexia nervosa, binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa. Fairbairn, of the independent group of British object relations theorists, provides a picture of the endopsychic structure based on the conscious and unconscious psychodynamics between partial ego/part-object dyads. Using three case histories, the following pages illustrate the incessantly present endopsychic permutations of the aforementioned dynamics and the possibility of the entrapment in one of these or swinging from one to the other in eating disorders. The essay also shows that early traumatic experiences are present in the case history of individuals with any one of these eating disorders and despite their manifested behavioural differences, they result from the widening of fissures in the universal split in the psyche due to emotional and/or physical abuse. Finally, using Fairbairn's theory, the analysis in the essay explains the comorbidity of certain eating disorders and borderline personality structure.</p>","PeriodicalId":54130,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Psychotherapy","volume":"40 4","pages":"582-595"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142435184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Visible and the Invisible: Reflections on Secrecy, Dehiscence and the Gaze of the Other in the Therapeutic Encounter","authors":"Scarlett de Courcier","doi":"10.1111/bjp.12918","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bjp.12918","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Psychotherapy is broadly concerned with secrets. Often our clients bring us things which they have never told anyone, subjects they have felt unable to broach. What happens in the relationship when a secret is uncovered? In this article, I discuss how one's secrets finally being uncovered can invoke shame. However, the shame of being seen in a new way can also create an opening that allows for a deeper intersubjective experience to unfold. Using Sartre's concept of the gaze of the other alongside Merleau-Ponty's ideas of dehiscence, visibility/invisibility and intertwining, I explore the meaning of secrecy, guilt and shame for both therapist and client within the therapeutic relationship.</p>","PeriodicalId":54130,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Psychotherapy","volume":"40 4","pages":"570-581"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjp.12918","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142435043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mourning the Loss of the Ideal Self: Short-Term Work with a Trans Patient Post-Transition","authors":"Marcus Evans","doi":"10.1111/bjp.12915","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bjp.12915","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Many individuals who have been through transition struggle to obtain the necessary medical and psychological support. This paper explores the importance of psychological support for post-transition individuals. In my experience, there is a subgroup of patients who struggle to come to terms with life post-transition, particularly the losses involved. They remain stuck in the mourning process. There is a loss of fantasies regarding an ideal transition, and the gap between the hoped-for transition outcomes and the post-transition reality can be painfully large. In addition, issues that the transition was meant to address remain in some form for some people, and they may also be haunted by misgivings about how the transition occurred. This paper employs a heavily anonymised composite case to illustrate and elaborate on how these issues emerged and were dealt with in the context of a psychotherapeutic process. Working through issues that led to transition and grievances about perceived and actual failures in care from the past allowed the patient to mourn the loss of her pre-transition image. The patient was able to come to terms with the reality of her transfer from male to trans-female and her body and life post-transition and to shift from a preoccupation with the past to move on with her life.</p>","PeriodicalId":54130,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Psychotherapy","volume":"40 4","pages":"484-502"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjp.12915","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142435817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laurence Spurling, Jan McGregor Hepburn, Ronald Doctor
{"title":"Session Frequency or Working Model? An Investigation into How We Can Think of the Difference Between ‘Intensive’ and ‘Non-Intensive’ Work Using the Comparative Clinical Method","authors":"Laurence Spurling, Jan McGregor Hepburn, Ronald Doctor","doi":"10.1111/bjp.12916","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bjp.12916","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This is an exploratory account of an applied clinical method, the Comparative Clinical Method, used to address a specific question: how can we best think of the difference between intensive and non-intensive analytic work? Normally, it is session frequency that is taken as a determining difference, as a marker of a different approach or method being employed. In our investigation, which consisted of the three authors presenting examples of their clinical work to each other, we did not find the intensive and non-intensive work of each author to demonstrate clear and easily defined differences in method or technique. Instead, we found more evidence of each author adopting a coherent and consistent approach, based on an underlying and implicit working model, across their intensive and non-intensive work. We conclude from this that the differences between intensive and non-intensive work are best explored by encouraging more conceptually rigorous and clinically specific descriptions of the different kinds of analytic assumptions and methods employed in ordinary analytic clinical work.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":54130,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Psychotherapy","volume":"40 4","pages":"467-483"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142435784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Issue Information - Cover and Editorial Board","authors":"","doi":"10.1111/bjp.12836","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bjp.12836","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54130,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Psychotherapy","volume":"40 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjp.12836","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141608045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Crowd Psychology to the Dynamics of Large Groups: Historical, Theoretical and Practical Considerations by Carla Penna. Published by Routledge, London and New York, 2022; 241 pp, £32.99 paperback.","authors":"Philip Hewitt","doi":"10.1111/bjp.12910","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bjp.12910","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54130,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Psychotherapy","volume":"40 3","pages":"437-440"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141607985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When Cancer Enters the Therapy Room: The Lived Experience of Psychodynamic Therapists Working with Clients with a Recent Diagnosis of Cancer","authors":"Geetika Rai, Alistair Ross","doi":"10.1111/bjp.12913","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bjp.12913","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The psychological impact of cancer is becoming well-acknowledged. Given its prevalence, practitioners will encounter cancer in their therapy rooms. There is limited research on the experience and application of psychodynamic therapy for clients with cancer. This study generates a new understanding through the experience of psychodynamic practitioners. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight UK psychodynamic therapists on their lived experience of working with client(s) with a recent (less than 5 years) diagnosis of cancer. The data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings reveal that psychodynamic therapists' experience with clients with cancer is emotionally demanding, mentally stimulating and deeply personal. They point to the unique space that psychodynamic therapy provides and highlight some of the challenges. The analysis is understood through the framework of psychodynamic theory and practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":54130,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Psychotherapy","volume":"40 3","pages":"410-429"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjp.12913","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141608000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}