British Journal of Psychotherapy最新文献

To differentiate the Social Dreaming Matrix from Group Relations Conferences, Gordon Lawrence provided a specific denomination, framework and primary task. Despite these new parameters, Lawrence understood that group dynamics persisted in the Matrix, perceiving social dreaming and group dynamics as two lenses of a binocular informing the Matrix. However, to fulfil the Matrix's primary task of accessing the social unconscious, he advocated a non-psychoanalytic monocular vision emphasizing social dreaming. In this article, I argue that the Social Dreaming Matrix and the Dream Reflection Dialogue that follows are, from a psychoanalytic perspective, two moments of a group whose primary task is Social Dreaming. Looking from a psychoanalytic perspective through the two lenses of social dreaming and group dynamics provides a wider perspective of the social unconscious, generating insights. This group psychoanalytic approach is a found-and-created framework rediscovering and recreating the object-Social Dreaming Matrix framework proposed by Lawrence. To support this argument, I analysed a series of Social Dreaming Matrixes and Dream Reflection Dialogues occurring during a social dreaming training programme to show how the unfolding group dynamics revealed the social unconscious as did social dreaming.

Schools are making an important contribution to providing access to professional counselling for young people and their families. The population of children who access school counselling includes young people who have experienced severe and complex trauma in their early life, which presents itself as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is a recommended method of intervention for PTSD, with effective results in a short time. However, school counsellors are rarely specifically trained to work with complex trauma or PTSD. This article presents a case study exploring the integration of the EMDR eight-phase protocol into child psychotherapy in an English primary school setting with a 5-year-old boy who suffered complex trauma. Following treatment, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) score and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7) score—filled in by the child's parent and schoolteacher because of the child's age—decreased to non-clinical levels. The six-month follow-up assessment confirmed the improvement in the emotional well-being of the client. The promising results suggest the value of having adequately qualified child psychotherapists linked to primary schools to support emotionally vulnerable pupils.

This paper investigates whether conspiracy theories arising during the COVID-19 pandemic are linked to early trauma or a specific organization of the mind. Using the Reptilian conspiracy theory as an example, the paper proposes that belief in conspiracy theories can activate unresolved memories of trauma and serve as a mediator between the psyche and intrusive content. Classic psychoanalytic concepts, as well as more modern ideas from Britton and Steiner, are explored to understand the role of early trauma and inner object relations dynamics in the development of Belief in Reptilian Conspiracy Theories (BiCT). The concept of après-coup is introduced to explain how newer responses to familiar psychic experiences may shape beliefs in conspiracies. Additionally, the paper proposes that belief in conspiracy theories can function as a psychic retreat. Two clinical cases are presented to illustrate these ideas while maintaining anonymity.

The objective of this study was to capture therapists’ experiences of delivering therapy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and how this experience impacted therapeutic alliance. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted on the responses to three surveys distributed to all UKCP members. The qualitative and quantitative analyses found significant variability in therapists’ feelings regarding the transition to online therapy, with overall perceptions continuing to be divided similarly throughout the nine months surveyed. While qualitative data highlighted positive perceptions of online therapy for some, quantitative results showed that most did not find online therapy to be as effective as face-to-face therapy. The pandemic and subsequent shift to online work had significant implications for therapists, including navigating unfamiliar changes to the therapeutic space resulting from experiencing a shared crisis, and holding the frame in relation to boundaries of safety. In the wake of the pandemic, as things shift increasingly towards a hybrid model of delivering therapy, it is important to reflect on what can be learned from this transition and how this influences future therapeutic practices.

This essay discusses the initial period of work in a clinical case undertaken by a first-year psychological therapies trainee. It describes the challenges of beginning such work in tragic circumstances, how the therapist and the institution managed that, and the emergence of creative possibilities alongside painful and deadening experiences. Developmental implications for the child are reflected on, as the themes of the work and the therapeutic relationship are described and illustrated with vignettes. The value of the psychological therapist's observant thoughtful presence, and naming and containing the child's emotional experiences is noted, and alongside a supportive network, considered to facilitate a more creative engagement with life for this young child.

This paper looks at the creation of narrative in the treatment of a 10-year-old girl. It will explore how psychodynamic, psychoanalytically informed work can help a child whose internalized narrative structure seemed built to harbour violent, unpredictable and psychopathic objects. It will examine how close and vigilant observation of a child's internalized storyline and choice of figurines/symbols can lead to more compassion and thoughtful personification in play, and how this in turn can lead not only to the facilitation of creativity around a more coherent storyline, but also the opportunity for the therapist to ‘co-author’ a different trajectory for the figurines, and outcome. Whilst the analysis will concentrate on the patient's internal world, it will extend to a discussion about the blurred lines between truth and play. The paper will present the examination and participation of symbolic play as a highly useful device for a therapist in shifting a child's interiority, in this case enough for the patient to be self-determining in their external world.

Humanity continues to experience serious violations of human rights, and the recent critical events, like the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, seem to have directly or indirectly intensified the occurrence of violations of human rights like torture, enforced disappearances, human trafficking, gender-based violence and war crimes. Can analytical psychology make a significant contribution to the prevention, treatment, remedying such violations, from the individual level to the most macro level of socio-political systems? I will support the thesis that the Jungian concept of soul has a special role in such an endeavour. My proposal is that when a social terrifying threat, like in the case of widespread social violence, is perceived at the social level, the functioning of the individual Self and society may change dramatically. In particular, both lose their containing function and are subjected to an unconscious massive collective pressure to align themselves to a specific kind of functioning that I call monolithic functioning. It is the splintering of what I call the reflective triangle, which is illustrated here, and has an effect on societal, groupal, interpersonal and intrapsychic levels. Some vignettes from a clinical case of a patient who suffered torture and gender-based violence are presented to illustrate how these human rights violations affect the three levels mentioned.

This article considers the position of the female tattooed body within the context of the ‘caring professions'. Tattoos are increasingly popular within these workplaces, but a stigma persists. The limited psychoanalytic research on body modifications in the consulting room concludes that tattoos are either a superficial fashion choice or an indicator of deviance and/or self-harm. To initiate a conversation that can move away from the current pathologizing paradigm, I have considered the ways in which tattooing can be considered as a creative ‘working through’, distinct from an aggressive ‘acting out’. The research utilized an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach to examine the lived experiences of female therapists, with body modifications, in the consulting room. All participants focused on their tattoos as their significant body modification and experiences varied depending on the specifics of the client work, professional environment and beliefs about perceptions of tattoos from the wider population. Identified themes were: appearance of self in the consulting room; the perceived communication of one's inner world through inked skin and integration of the process of tattooing. Professionalism was emphasized as an integral consideration for revealing or concealing tattoos in the consulting room and specifically this was heightened in relation to being female.