Issue 4 – August 2012

Editorial

Enikő Albert – Lőrincz

ARTICLES

Invited lecture

Péter György: At the border: the transformation

Methodological study

Éva Gyomlai: The role of analytic identity and creativity in initiating psychoanalysis

Questions of practice

István Tiringer: Psychotherapy of the aged – Part 1.

The way we work…

Mária Tornyossy: „So many family members so many psychologists.” A case study of family therapy

Piroska Komlósi: Reflections on Mária Tornyossy’s case study: „So many family members so many psychologists.”

Magdolna Peresa: Case interpretation of Mária Tornyossy’s case study: „So many family members so many psychologists.”

 

PROFESSIONAL LIFE

Presentations

Team-presentation

Eszter Ács, Katalin Görbe, Zsuzsanna Hargitai, Simonné Gabriella Goschi: Psychotherapy at the borders

Discussions

Discussion on touching and body contact – Ilona Erős¨ Magda Molnár ¨ Tünde Perfalvi-Zobor Orsolya Emese Páll

Ethical questions in therapeutic practice – Linda Bernáth ¨ Hubainé Márta Muzsnai ¨ Katalin Szakács

Letter to the Editor – Éva Urbán

News

Reports

Book review workshop – Amaryl Árkovits

Professional programs


Articles

Éva Gyomlai

The role of analytic identity and creativity in initiating psychoanalysis

After obtaining the required qualification our own anxieties can play a significant part in whether we begin working as an analyst. These anxieties can arise from countertransference feelings or can be existential ones, or we may be afraid of overburdening, overinvolvement, commitment and rivalry situations. To be aware of and working through these anxieties are essential when we recommend analysis to our patients.

The analyst’s professional commitment, his or her opinion and conviction about applicability of analytic methods can counterbalance these anxieties. It can be essential to reconsider previous opinions about analysability and emphasize the analytic dyad’s work against diagnosing the patient. Sometimes shorter or longer psychotherapy is needed to initiate psychoanalysis, to develop a working method and to moderate the resistances. In case of patients who are already in psychotherapy it can be useful to reconsider the transference-countertransference processes from the aspect of intensifying the therapy. More intensive therapy reach the psychotic parts and gives an opportunity for deeper personality restructuring, for more emotional freedom, and developing the capacity for self-analysis.

Keywords: analysability – analytic identity – initiating analysis – analytic dyad


The way we work

Mária Tornyossy

Commented by Piroska Komlósi and Magdolna Peresa

„As many psychologists as family members”

Family therapeutic case history

 

In the present study I examine difficulties that come up when different members of the same family go to different psychologists. When many psychologists work on one family, it is like many surgeons operating on the various organs of the same person.

I also emphasise another point: even when we do individual therapy we are in touch with a family, because we enter the psychic area of the patient’s family. Changes in a person will affect the whole family; therefore we have to assess the state of the family, and the wider context they live in. When we treat one person, we get a picture of the family from their perspective, and we do not know if we are looked upon as intruders. We respect the psychological boundaries of the family if we involve the client’s partner into the therapeutic process to some extent.

I introduce one of my cases of a family with three children, at the beginning of their therapy four psychologists worked with them, and they saw different “faces” of the same family. When their therapy got into one hand, a bigger context opened up in which the actual, critical problem of the family and the wife (who came to me as a client) could be interpreted, as they belonged to a psychic community where they suffered psychic injury.

Treatment of the pair’s marital crisis in an eclectic technique, accommodating to the actual needs – I had to combine different methods. Individual sessions were combined with crisis intervention, mediation, couple therapy, and when needed, educational advice. I had to moderate a process that greatly depended on a community of friendly families, where the couple lost its psychic autonomy that had an effect on them even in the present, during the therapeutic process.

Key words: individual therapy – family therapy – combination of methods – therapeutic boundaries – social context


István Tiringer

Psychotherapy of the aged

Part 1

People of the older generation have shown a growing interest in psychotherapy in the last few decades. The increased possibility of treating the older generation is related to increase of the average age in the developed countries. As a result of intensive researches into medical-biology and psychosocial reality our picture of aging became more shaded, against the previous period which was largely about losses and processes of degradation.  Psychotherapeutic theory and practice seem to react slowly to changes in the outlook of the basic sciences. There is an obvious shortage of publications about the subject of aging in the home grown psychotherapeutic literature.

This study gives a short account of theories dealing with the subject of aging, and demonstrates the development of the psychotherapeutic methods applied to the aged as they were influenced by modern gerontology.

Epidemiological examinations regarding the care and supply of psychological problems of the aged show substantial lack. Apart from stereotypical simplifications, the cause can be that fact that psychotherapeutic training programmes hardly touch caring for the aged; therapists of the future do not get knowledge relevant theories, and competencies. Training programmes spend little attention to the personal side of therapeutic relationships with the aged (like the characteristic transference – counter-transference issues in working with the aged).

The study discusses the specific diagnostic issues regarding the aged, and illustrates the possibilities within the cognitive-behaviouristic and psychodynamic approaches, and the psychotherapeutic methods developed specifically for working with the aged.

The paper will be published in two parts. In the current issue the author discusses the theoretical background and general characteristics of the psychotherapies of older adults. The second part, published in the next issue, deals with the cognitive-behavioural and the psychodynamic approaches in the treatment of older people.

Key words: neglect of psychological problems of the aged – theoretical models of psychotherapy for the aged – psychotherapeutic diagnostics and indications – basic psychosomatic care – cognitive-behavioural and psychodynamic approaches

 

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