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- Message-ID: <PSYCGRAD%92091118092223@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
- Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 13:43:55 EDT
- Sender: "Psychology Graduate Students Discussion Group List"
- <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
- From: Tim Tumlin <UFTRT@NERVM.BITNET>
- Subject: Re: Three Issues on Personality
- In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 10 Sep 1992 22:00:00 -0400 from <ADLIN@UTKVX>
- Lines: 24
-
- In regard to adlin's comment on psychodynamic therapy, it is difficult to
- comment on your advisor's case, but it seems as though that was a strategic
- decision on his part to work within that delusional system, as depriving the
- patient of that would have been more than he could endure at that time.
- Recall that Milton Erickson once encountered an inpatient who thought he,
- the patient, was Jesus Christ. In order to engage him in some kind of
- activity, he went to the patient and said "I understand you're a carpenter."
- He convinced the patient to use his skills in the hospital shop and that
- eventually led to gains that resulted in his recovery and release.
- Dynamic therapy may have a dictum of the truth will set you free; i've
- never seen that. I DO know that Freud said that insight alone is not
- enough. THere is more to dynamic therapy than knowing that you are refracting
- your perceptions of reality.
- Of course, we cannot know if the patient's report is accurate, although some
- things are easier to figure out than others. This is why the therapist should
- make maximum use of the therapeutic situation as a check. As far as the
- past not mattering, Freud said he found that a memory and a fantasy have the
- same effect and that the business of psychoanalysis (therapy in general?) was
- to deal with those effects. This is something that is left out of the
- seduction theory debate sometimes. Thus, he was giving his patients the benefit
- of the doubt -- i.e., it doesn't matter if someone was molested or believes
- he/she was molested as a child, the sequalae are both to be treated and
- worekd through.
- Tim
-