How to Practice Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapy : The Core Conflictual Relationship Theme Method

by Book, Howard E., M.D.

• ISBN13: 9781557984654
• ISBN10: 1557984654
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-04-01
• Publisher: AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSN

Summary

How To Practice Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: The Core Conflictual Relationship Theme Method is a clinically based and clinically illustrated manual that walks the reader through the development of the Core Confilictual Relationship Theme (CCRT) focus that is necessary to practice this specific form of brief psychodynamic psychotherapy (BPP). The CCRT method is a research-supported, easily operationalized, valid, and reliable form of conducting a strongly interactive form of brief therapy. The CCRT method offers symptom relief and limited but significant character change in a 16-session format that focuses on and helps the client work through one crucial, circumscribed area of maladaptive personality style. Small changes in this one behavioral theme, or dimension, have been seen to be associated with larger more pervasive shifts in functioning. After presenting general background about the BPPs and specific discussion of the CCRT rationale and process, author Howard E. Book offers the reader a unique analysis of CCRT therapy in action. In an extended clinical vignette, the reader may follow therapist and client in a step-by-step manner, from initial session; to therapist formation, articulation, and representation of the CCRT; through the tripartite 16-session course of therapy itself; and, finally, to termination and follow-up. This book will be of use to four major audiences: first, those clinicians - regardless of their basic theoretical alliances - currently practicing long-term therapy, who wish to gain knowledge of the BPPs and expertise in practicing the CCRT method itself; second, directors of postgraduate psychology programs or mental health training centers, as well asdirectors of psychiatric residency programs, who are searching for a lively, clinically rich textbook; third, for the many students in such programs who are in need of a general explication of the BPP and of an engaging text about a specific form of it; and fourth, to all clinicians in search of an empirically based and proven, effective therapy format that can be practiced in our increasingly managed-care environment.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi	(4)
Lester Luborsky, PhD
Preface	xv	(2)
Acknowledgments	xvii	(2)
About This Book	xix
1. Introduction to the Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapies and the CCRT Method	1	(18)
The Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapies
Definition of Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapies
General Characteristics of the Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapies
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria for Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Basic Techniques of Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Countertransference
The Core Conflictual Relationship Theme Focus
PART I. Developing the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme	19	(56)
2. Identifying the CCRT Focus	21	(12)
What the CCRT Looks Like
How the CCRT Is Generated: The Relationship Episode
The Three Components of a CCRT
3. Making the Unspoken Components of the CCRT Explicit	33	(14)
Making the Wish Explicit
Making the Response of the Other Explicit
Making the Response of Self Explicit
Corroborating Information
Defining the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme
Enactments
4. The Goal of BPP: Actualizing the Wish	47	(10)
Working Through the Response of the Other
The Three Phases of 16-Session CCRT Method of BPP
Regressive Versus Progressive Wishes
5. How to Present the CCRT to the Patient How to Deal With the Patient Who Disagrees With the CCRT	57	(8)
6. The Three Phases of Treatment	65	(10)
Phase I (Sessions 1 to 4): Demonstrating the Ubiquity of the CCRT
Phase II (Sessions 5 to 12): Working Through the RO
Enactments and the RO
Phase III (Sessions 13 to 16): Termination
Common Questions and Answers About the CCRT
PART II. Practicing the CCRT Method of Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Case Study	75	(94)
Introduction	77	(4)
7. Assessment Process: Capturing Relationship Episodes While Taking a History and Carrying Out a Mental Status Examination	81	(20)
Father
Mother
Parental Separation
Developmental History
Mental Status: Diagnostic and Dynamic Impression
Creating Ms. Benton's CCRT
8. Socialization Interview	101	(8)
Presenting the CCRT
Specifying the 16-Session Time Limit
Detailing the Therapist's and Patient's Tasks During Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
9. Phase I (Sessions 1 to 4): Demonstrating the Ubiquity of the CCRT	109	(18)
Common Questions and Answers About Phase I
10. Phase II (Sessions 5 to 12): Identifying and Working Through the RO	127	(20)
Increased Spontaneous Awareness of the CCRT
Working Through the RO: Fears That Others Will Be Angry at Her
Working Through the RO: Fears That She Will Damage Others
A Countertransference Error
Common Questions and Answers About Phase II
11. Phase III (Sessions 13 to 16): Termination	147	(18)
Maintaining Focus on Termination
Following-up
Common Questions and Answers About Phase III
12. Epilogue	165	(4)
References	169	(6)
Index	175	(6)
About the Author	181