Lectures Flashcards
Psychodynamic “Active Ingredients”
1) Making Unconscious Conscious
2) Supports Ego Function/Domains of Function
3) Reactivating Development
Why bring unconscious to conscious
1) Abreaction/Catharis (release of tension)
2) Prevention of that which proliferates in the dark – it may not be what you think
3) Self awareness
What is Domain Function/Ego Function
Help us with reality testing, impulse control, self esteem regulation. Five major functions are self, relationships, adapting, cognition, work/play.
Client may benefit from borrowing the therapists function.
What is reactivating development
psychotherapy can help to reactivating a development that was arrested due to abuse, neglect, person’s temperament or genetics
Depth Therapy
Going deep, uncovering therapy. Heavy, intense, done selectively
Four Phases according to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (more Common)
1) Assessment
2) Beginning
3) Middle
4) Ending
Three Phases According two Psychodynamic Therapy textbook
1) Emotional Uncovering
2) Cognitive restructuring
3) Leading to difference in behavioral response
Goals of Assessment
1) Chief Complaint
2) History (Development/Psychological)
3) Domains of function - strengths and difficulties
4) Reflective capacity/psychological mindedness
5) Motivation and resources
Five Domains of Function. IF you know these about the person you know them pretty well.
Self Relationship Adapting Cognition Work/Play
Defensive Processes
Used by the psyche (ego/you) to fend of anxiety. We need them. They begin as global, inevitable and adaptive ways of experiencing the world. They are in our personalities . Defenses are neutral in themselves how we deploy them can be positive or negative
Why we use the defenses we do
1) Temprament
2) Nature of the stressors that are suffered in early childhood
3) Defenses modeled or taught by parents/significant figures
4) Consequences of using particular defenses .
Mature Defense
Allows person to function at a higher level and is more socially acceptable. Usually develops later in life
Reflective Capacity
Ability to step back and look at yourself from a different vantage point.
Cognitive dissonance
Difference between someone’s values and someone’s actions.
Observing Ego
able to have reflective capacity, reality testing, psychological mindedness
Experiencing Ego
All ID.
Reality Testing
Ability to contrast fantasies and desires versus reality
Reductionistic vs Holistic
Reductionism is an attempt to break down a complex thing into small set to make it easier to deal with. Holistic deals with the whole (biology, sociology, psychology). Therapy is more wholistic than reductionistic
Options that happen in result of defending against a trauma
1) Repress both the memory and the feeling it evokes
2) Repress memory but not feeling, sad but don’t know why
3) Repress feeling but not memory, remember it but have no feelings
Denial
Primitive defense, one of the first we are capable of using. 100% denial is rare. In some ways every defense is denial or repression
Repression
Forgetting can be memory or feeling.
Projection
Placing oneself into the mind or heart of another. Not always negative.
Acting Out
Example of cutting oneself. Do it to see if they feel alive, isolates pain into one area
Undoing
a person tries to cancel out or remove an unhealthy, destructive or otherwise threatening thought or action by engaging in contrary behavior. Commonly seen with OCD
When to use uncovering/supporting based on domains of function
People with problematic functioning generally need support while people with healthier functioning can benefit from uncovering unconscious thoughts and fantasies
Questions not addressed often enough
Violence (domestic/verbal), Sex (How is your sex life?), Death and Grief (any unresolved grief), Ethnicity/race (sometimes an elephant in the room), values (religious? atheistic, agnostic? How do you find meaning)
