An audit of personality disorder in a psychoanalytic psychotherapy service

Heller, Mary Brownescombe

doi:10.1080/02668730100700121

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 14 publications

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“…1395, 1400)This is not to say, however, that more disturbed patients cannot be helped by psychoanalytically informed work. Lower frequency, longer duration work (Heller, ) can facilitate the building up of attachment without demanding a level of initial enforced closeness sufficiently threatening to ‘switch off’ any tentative capacity to mentalize (Bateman & Fonagy, ). For some patients, less may really be more, with longer spaces between sessions helping to regulate the intensity of the therapeutic process that might otherwise be ‘regulated’ by missing sessions or dropping out, enabling the therapist to remain a bearable and useful object in the psychologically fragile patient's mind, rather than the overwhelming, alien introject they may otherwise become.…”

Section: Clinical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Polden¹

2018

Brit J Psychotherapy

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Session frequency can be seen as definitive of psychoanalytic identity but contemporary relational and constructivist perspectives and trends towards psychoanalytic work being conducted at lower and varying frequencies are leading increasingly to a rift between psychoanalytic work as theorized and practised on the one hand and as ‘taught at’ specified frequencies within psychoanalytic institutions on the other. The value of high‐frequency work in the right conditions is considered, while automatic equations between high‐frequency, high‐intensity and high‐value clinical work are questioned. Pressure towards higher frequency work, sometimes to meet training requirements, may imperil the psychoanalytic stance it seeks to preserve, particularly the recognition of patients’ frequency preferences as a psychic phenomenon requiring understanding rather than manipulation. The roots of coercive attitudes to session frequency in unresolved issues relating to institutional psychoanalytic superegos are explored; implications for training, ethics and the status of psychoanalytic work are considered.

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Section: Clinical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Many Times?

Polden¹

2018

Brit J Psychotherapy

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show abstract

An audit of personality disorder in a psychoanalytic psychotherapy service

Cited by 1 publication

References 14 publications

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How Many Times?

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