Intensive short‐term dynamic psychotherapy—central dynamic sequence: head‐on collision with resistance

Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (STPP) for a Severely Performance Anxious Musician: A Case Report

“…Examples include Experiential Dynamic Therapy, Affect Phobia Therapy and intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy (ISTDP) [15]. The theoretical rationale for STPPs is founded on psychoanalytic theory [16], object relations theory [17][18][19], and attachment theory [20,21].…”

“…The rage, guilt about the rage, grief and craving for attachment and positive feelings are all repressed into symptoms and submerged under behaviors that enable the child to continue a relationship with his parent(s). This process eventually becomes a characteristic defensive system [37], variously called pathological accommodation [38] or fragile character structure [15,39,40]. Whenever the child is in a situation that has the potential for a rupture of attachment, the repressed rage, guilt about the rage, grief and pain from the initial attachment rupture is re-activated.…”

“…Anxiety can manifest in any of four ways, alone or in combination. The most adaptive manifestation of anxiety is tension in the striated muscles of the body [15]. Chronic striated muscle anxiety is associated with a number of physical problems including fibromyalgia, pain, spasm, hyperventilation and panic [44].…”

“…Typically, these patients manifest one or a combination of the following symptoms -weepiness (tears without feelings of grief), temper tantrums, explosive discharges of affect, confusion, self-harm, drug and alcohol misuse, dissociation, and projection of their feelings into others [40]. Each patient is carefully assessed with respect to the form of anxiety expression and the system of defence [15]. This gives important information to the clinician about how to proceed with therapy.…”

The agonistic metaphor in psychotherapy: Should clients battle their blues?

“…Freud’s own most common metaphor for dealing with resistance was to overcome it (in German, uberwinden ); he also wrote of attacking , fighting , tackling , defying , and doing away with it, never of analyzing it as is commonly done today (Lohser & Newton, 1996, p. 17). The confrontation implied in these descriptions is the hallmark of several models of brief dynamic psychotherapy, such as the approach of Davanloo (1999) who encouraged a head-on collision with resistance.…”