Issue 3 – August 2022

Pszichoterápia

A professional journal of practice based on psychotherapeutic methods

A quarterly publication 31st year, issue 3. August 2022.

 

Contents

 

Editorial

Mária Barna, Zsanett Kepics, Cece Tibor Kiss, Dániel Vattay

 

ARTICLES

Methodological study

Ferenc Túry, Beáta Pászthy: The method of mutual requests in family therapy: a responsibility-oriented exercise

Questions of practice

Gabriella Vizin: Kintsugi? Modern psychosocial intervention for patients with breast cancer

Theoretical study

László Bokor: Suggestion and exploration: is there really none or is it always there? – a quest for the common ground.

Questions of practice

David Tuckett: Transference and transference interpretation revisited: Why a parsimonious model of practice may be useful. 2nd part. Translated by: Mária Barna

 

WORKSHOP

Comment

Amaryl Árkovits, István Bitter, Antal Bugán: Comments on Gábor Szőnyi’s paper ‘The context of education. The context of general and method-specific psychotherapist training’

Contest

Richárd Flach, Ágnes Bátfai, Melinda Sinkó, Zsuzsa Zatroch: Psychotherapeutic ‘one minute stories’

 

PROFESSIONAL LIFE

Portrait

I am engaged with „human-archeology” – Portrait of Lilla Hárdi – Compiled by Noémi Berger

Mocking glass

Zsuzsanna Trixlerné Szabó: If „Pszichoterápia” had been my client

Discussions, comments

Debate on pro bono psychotherapy – Amaryl Árkovits ♦ Anna Kiss ♦ Botond Balázs ♦ Éva Ratkóczi 

Ethical dilemmas of therapeutic practice 38th: Dániel Eörsi ♦ Panna Gajdos ♦ Emese Molnár

Professional statement – Letter of the psychotherapy associations to the Semmelweis University Psychotherapy Committee regarding the planned changes of the psychotherapy training

News

Farewell from Magda Ritoók (1936-2022) – Mónika Viszket

In memoriam Magda Szőnyi (1940-2022) – Emőke Bagdy

In memoriam Ferenc Falus (1950-2022) –Klára Ajkay, Emőke Bagdy, Emőke Dobos, Ildikó Erdélyi, Gyula Kapusi, András Pajor

 

Reports

Conferences – Filoména Kovács ♦ Zsuzsanna Trixlerné Szabó ♦ Lilla Kolos ♦ Nóra Dudás ♦ Rita Kárpáti ♦ Kincső Molnár ♦ Luca Sarkadi

Film letter Felícia András: The Northman

Theater letterAndrea Mircse: The Hat

Book reviews – Mária Koltai ♦ Emese Molnár ♦ Ferenc Túry

List of professional books and periodicals

Professional programs

Announcements

 

 

STUDIES

 

Methodological study

 

Ferenc Túry, Beáta Pászthy

The method of mutual requests in family therapy: a responsibility-oriented exercise

 

Several family therapy approaches make use of taskgiving as a method to induce change. Requests from family members towards each other are a common form of taskgiving. These are usually aimed at strengthening family relationships, improving communication and easing tensions. In the present methodological study, we aim to further elaborate on one such form of taskgiving, namely the „mutual requests method”, offering detailed pragmatic recommendations. The central point of this method is that family members can make clearly formulated and measurable requests to each other regarding regularly recurring activities. Our study presents the use of this complex and pragmatic family therapy intervention, along with its methodological and theoretical underpinnings and illustrates its application through short case presentations. We seek to draw attention to its many advantages: its potential to increase mutual sense of responsibility between family members, its ability to make communication clearer by agreements made in the spirit of transparent contracts, its distinct diagnostic value when it comes to understanding family dynamics and its role in restructuring the family system and in promoting differentiation of family members. The theoretical context of the mutual requests method highlights its connection to approaches focused on the issue of responsibility, including contextual family therapy and existential psychotherapy. 

 

Keywords: family therapy, mutual requests, responsibility, relational ethics, existential psychotherapy

 

 

Questions of practice

 

Gabriella Vizin

Kintsugi? Modern psychosocial intervention for patients with breast cancer

 

Breast cancer is a common disease among women. Although the survival rate of breast cancer patients shows an increasing trend due to more effective treatment plans, cancer mortality rates are still high in Hungary compared to other EU countries. From a psychological perspective, undiagnosed psychological disorders, insufficient treatment, and also poor adherence to treatment among patients with breast cancer are recognized as decisive factors behind the saddening mortality data.

We have evidence that cognitive behavioral methods are effective in reducing the psychological symptoms of women with breast cancer. However, CBT is underrepresented in psycho-oncological care in Hungary. In addition, there is a lack of a complex, comprehensive programs to improve the well-being of breast cancer patients.

The main aim of this study is to present a psychological rehabilitation program for oncology patients (CBT-OP, entitled KLOÉ in Hungarian) based on cognitive behavioral therapy, first developed for young breast cancer patients.

Our CBT-OP program is a structured, focused CBT based, 10-session group therapy which includes standard evidence-based CBT techniques, and methods of mindfulness and self-compassion. We plan to investigate the effectiveness of our program in the future.

 

Keywords: breast cancer – psychooncology – cognitive behavioral therapy – mindfulness – self-compassion

 

 

Theoretical study

 

László Bokor

Suggestion and exploration: is there really none or is it always there? – a quest for the common ground.

 

While laying the foundations of the psychoanalytic method, Freud distanced himself from hypnosis and suggestion at an early stage. The main motivation of this avoidance might have been to distinguish the new method from hypnosis. It can be assumed that despite Freudian doctrines, many analysts use suggestion unreflectively.

Hypnosis interaction is based on the ancient communication responsible for the organization of unreflective, affect-driven behavior, whose neurological basis is the implicit-procedural memory. The same characterises evolutionarily ancient (swarm, flock, pack, herd) social communication, which is primarily achieved through the activation of affects based on movements. In humans its original form can be observed in extreme cases of destructive processes of the unstructured mass, or in mass panic.

In balanced situations, cognitive operations based on phylogenetically and ontogenetically subsequent explicit-declarative memory, ensure organized social activities, solidarity, joint planning and organization through reconsideration and planning.

Hypnosis, as an evolutionarily adaptive state, activates the area of implicit-procedural memory, thereby igniting the channels of ancient communication in the therapeutic relationship.

The standpoint that change is brought about by insight following interpretation has changed in the technical theory of psychoanalysis. The focus has shifted to modifying representations of implicit-procedural memory. Therapeutic change is now considered as a consequence of this representational modification, and conscious understanding is merely seen as following this change. The technique of reaching this common point differs only in the direct or indirect way of doing so. The interactions observed in the therapeutic relationship highlight the dialectic of interconnection and disconnection in both methods, defined as synchronicity in hypnosis, and as intersubjective interconnection and disconnection in psychoanalysis. Differences between the two methods can be observed in the treatment of representations achieved and discoursed.

The question remains open: is there such a thing as psychotherapy without hypnosis, and especially without suggestion?

 

Keywords: hypnosis – suggestion – psychoanalysis – therapeutic technique – evolution – neurobiology – memory systems – mirror neuron system

 

 

Questions of practice

 

David Tuckett

Transference and transference interpretation revisited: Why a parsimonious model of practice may be useful. II/2.

 

British author David Tuckett is one of the outstanding figures of contemporary psychoanalysis. His parsimonious theory, as it features in the present study’s title, is also of remarkable importance. At the beginning of the 2000s, as president of the European Psychoanalytical Federation, it was him who initiated the modernization of the yearly conferences. As part of this modernization, thematic Working Parties were organized as precursors to the main conference. The members of these working parties carry on their joint work beyond the scope of the conference itself. Such is the Working Party on Comparative Clinical Methods referred to in the current paper, whose task is the comparative study of clinical methods. David Tuckett initiated and put into practice the collection of psychoanalytic literature into a digital library (PEPweb – Psychoanalytic Electronic Library), which made all the relevant psychoanalytic journals, the comprehensive collection of Freud’s  works and the main books on psychoanalysis easily accessible worldwide. At the beginning of the 2000s, for a period of four years, he transformed the yearly congregation of European training analysts into a “self-examining system”. The research focused on the core elements of assessing psychoanalytic competence of candidates in the psychoanalytic training.

The present study is a challenging read for analysts, those interested in psychoanalysis and those of different background alike. It is worth however to devote time and effort to it, because of the topic it addresses: how is the analyst present during the therapy, how does s/he arrive to the step s/he takes? All it builds upon is the handful of core concepts from a complex system of psychoanalytic theories. He selects those concepts which speak for the inner, competent functioning of the analyst. He then elucidates his line of thought in a case summary, making it easier to take in for readers, be those analysts or professionals of other schools of thought.

This paper was written based on one of the author’s lectures, however its clinical material and a part of the thoughts presented here was published in a journal (Tuckett, D. (2019): Transference and transference interpretation revisited: Why a parsimonious model of practice may be useful. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 100:5.). Due to the length of the text, we are publishing it in two parts. Following the first part, featured in the previous issue of Pszichoterápia, what follows here is the second – concluding – part of the paper.

It would be interesting to read studies from other methods as well, which could shed light on the core of the therapist’s presence and working attitude in the given method’s context.

 

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