Investigating our shared ‘implicit relational knowing’ about the working alliance by considering the question: Do therapists tend to over-estimate the working alliance they have with their clients? Take part in our online enquiry and join us in a shared experimental learning process. You are welcome to join in the enquiry around this topic which I [...]
The Psychotherapy Excellence webcast series on the topic 'Relational Psychotherapy - Praises and Pitfalls' is now complete. I contributed an interview on: The embodied phenomenology of enactment It is in the area of subliminal, non-verbal and pre-verbal communications between client and therapist that enactments incubate, long before they become noticeable, articulated and problematic. Implicit relational [...]
Following on from Interview 2 with Tom Warnecke for Psychotherapy Excellence, as it was fresh on my mind, I have written a sequence of 100 bullet points on the question "How does psychotherapy work?" - follow me on Twitter (@INTEGRA_CPD) to catch the whole series, one every day ... The bullet points are not yet [...]
A series of 10 interviews by Psychotherapy Excellence - Interview 2: How Does Psychotherapy Work? Last Monday I completed the second in the Psychotherapy Excellence series of interviews, with Tom Warnecke, on the topic of how psychotherapy works. This is building on the first interview on the question “What is Psychotherapy?” some months ago. The [...]
Interested in this proposal for an experiential workshop on 'mindfulness'? Mindfulness is all the rage and in fashion everywhere – in therapy, in business, in health. It’s supposed to cure all ills, increase performance, improve your relationships, help you make money, relieve all sorts of pain from physical to mental, and establish a peaceful society. [...]
Mindfulness is in fashion – in therapy, business, health. But its promise is already flagging, people are becoming disenchanted with it. It’s not surprising that mindfulness has turned into another fad & can’t possibly live up to people’s desperate expectations & idealisations. Westerners are in grave danger of misreading the Eastern teachings on mindfulness through [...]
This newsletter update is mainly to inform you about the proposed purpose and format of our online enquiry, but it also includes a reminder about a CPD event I am helping prepare which is not to be missed: a 1-day conference with philosopher Shaun Gallagher. To subscribe to future newsletters, join our mailing list. [...]
Clarkson, P. (1995) The Therapeutic Relationship. Whurr The working alliance is the part of client- psychotherapist relationship that enables the client and therapist to work together even when the patient client experiences some desires to the contrary. (Clarkson 1994 p. 31) The working alliance or psychotherapeutic alliance is probably first encountered as a concept in [...]
Ralph R Greenson (1967) Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis Greenson defined the working alliance as: “the relatively non-and neurotic, rational, and realistic attitudes of the patient towards the analyst … It is this part of the patient-analyst relationship that enables the patient to identify with the analyst’s point of view and to work with the [...]
This 2008 paper "Supershrinks - What's the secret of their success?" by Scott Miller, Mark Hubble, and Barry Duncan is one of the inspiration for this enquiry. They claim that therapists DO over-estimate their effectiveness and the working alliance. It's a great read (that does not mean I agree with everything they say, but they [...]
A student submitted this cartoon - here is my response: Nice graphic - did you draw it, or is it copied from somewhere? Some suggestions for clarification: I think the face of the Id looks more like a cynical, demanding parent than a demanding, passionate or even greedy child. The poor Ego looks adequately squeezed [...]
Some key points of the recently published transcript: Different types of embodiment work Attending to the body to make therapy more impactful, we notice that rather than us impacting the client, the client’s character impacts on us. By opening to non-verbal, subliminal bodymind communications, therapists become more vulnerable to the impact of here & now [...]
You are bound to fail as a facilitator if you get trapped in the client's character This is Part 1 of an edited transcript of a teaching talk, given in June 2014 to a training group of facilitators, with a special emphasis on the bodymind connection and embodiment. The main point of this talk is [...]
You are bound to fail as a facilitator if you get trapped in the client's character This is Part 2 of an edited transcript of a teaching talk, given in June 2014 to a training group of facilitators, with a special emphasis on the bodymind connection and embodiment. The main point of this talk is [...]
You are bound to fail as a facilitator if you get trapped in the client's character This is Part 3 of an edited transcript of a teaching talk, given in June 2014 to a training group of facilitators, with a special emphasis on the bodymind connection and embodiment. The main point of this talk is [...]
Finally, after about 9 months' work since our wonderful WordPress webdesigner finalised the basic framework, the new site is ready to launch. We are very happy with it for now, although some options are not implemented yet. At last, all the resources are in one place, and they are easily accessible and it is fairly [...]
Preparing a workshop for a new group or organisation that I have not worked with before can be useful, taking me back to first principles. On Saturday I will be running an experiential workshop for the foundation year of the Society of Analytical Psychology. Here is the workshop description I came up with and the [...]
New Books in Psychoanalysis are making available 1-hour long interviews with writers and scholars on their recently published books. Adam Phillips, “Becoming Freud: The Making of a Psychoanalyst” (Yale UP, 2014) Steven Kuchuck, ed., “Clinical Implications of the Psychoanalyst’s Life Experience” (Routledge, 2013) R. D. Hinshelwood, “Research on the Couch: Single-Case Studies, Subjectivity and Psychoanalytic [...]
We are hearing therapists becoming frustrated and disenchanted with the current CPD culture in the profession: repetitive input, endless lectures, overly theoretical PowerPoints and discussions. We will organise a mini-survey soon, to establish some facts on this. In contrast: just had some properly evaluated feedback from recent workshop in Brighton - have a look here [...]
A series of 10 interviews by Psychotherapy Excellence, starting with the question: What is Psychotherapy? (Michael's interview is session 8 in this series ... there will be a free webcast of the interview on Monday, July 21st) "At first sight, this may seem quite a basic opening question for a new series of interviews with [...]
