From Introduction: To learn to focus on the other, I first have to learn my natural limits. Unless my natural limits are found, I cannot focus on myself or the other with freedom. I will either draw back or intrude. As I learn my natural limits, I free the energy I previously used in questioning limits. Having recognised that I am bounded, the effect of my released energy is to deepen my space. The infinity which used to lie beyond the horizon is brought into the realm of the human where it can be useful. As a psychotherapist the deepening (that is differentiation) of my own space is very important. It means that the space I share with the other is better explored and better known. The raw data for this thesis is a record of 2½ weeks of intensive psychotherapy and 3 weeks of intensive explication. During this time I explored the interrelated themes of my own limits and the particular shadowedness of the space I shared with Tony, the person in psychotherapy with me.

M.A. / According to Kleespies (2000), a client's behavioural crisis is a condition in which a client has reached a state of mind in which his or her usual coping mechanisms are inadequate to restore equilibrium or to allow him or her to go on functioning in an adaptive way. A crisis may be a turning point for better or worse, but it necessarily does not lead to danger of serious physical harm or life-threatening danger. A behavioural emergency will be taken to mean that a client has reached an acute mental state in which he or she is at imminent risk of behaving in a way that will result in serious harm or death of self unless there is some immediate intervention (Kleespies, 2000). Psychotherapists' work with suicidal clients seems to be placing huge demands on them, particularly on the emotional level, and there are anxieties which are felt when working with suicidal clients. The focus of this research study is on the exploration of the experiences of psychotherapists (qualified or trainees), in working with suicidal clients. Regarding work with suicidal clients, this research study is coming from a slightly different angle as it seeks to attend to therapists' feelings regarding working with clients with suicidal feelings and behaviour. For the purposes of exploration of this study, semi-structured interviews, with the assistance of a tape recorder, were conducted with respondents in order to gather information. These individual interviews were then transcribed, and the typed data was then analysed using the content analysis method of analysing data, according to Weber (1985). This also allowed for common themes, as identified in the interviews, to be obtained and they formed the results of this study. The results indicated a number of themes which emerged, and the researcher decided on selecting and discussing the major themes. There were a variety of themes found as the participants had described how they emotionally experienced working with suicidal clients, and on how they felt the emotional, personal and professional demands of the nature of this work.

The aim of the study was to describe the therapist's lived experience of identifying, containing and processing the feelings, thoughts or fantasies evoked in him by the patient's projective identifications. A question which would elicit the experience of this phenomenon was formulated by examining case histories, and modified through the use of individual pilot studies. Fifteen experienced, psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists were interviewed. The eight psychologically richest accounts were chosen for the study. Using the empirical phenomenological method, the four protocols that most clearly reflected the phenomenon were analysed in detail, while the remaining four were used to clarify areas of uncertainty. Projective identification is conceptualised as the process whereby the patient coerces the therapist to embody an un-appropriated aspect of his (patient's) world. The context of processing a patient's projective identification was discovered to be such that the therapist finds himself coerced to embody an incongruent, unfamiliar, confusing and inauthentic state of being which is consonant with the patient's perception of him. The discomfort of the experience leads the therapist to bring to awareness and thematise his feeling-state. He alternates between avoiding this state of being, which results in conf1ict with the patient and the therapist's own values, and appropriating it, which feels inauthentic. The therapist moves from a position of trying to understand the experience in relation to his own world, to the realisation that it is co-determined by the patient. From a position of reflective distance he re-appropriates aspects of his world that were closed to him while under the influence of the patient, in addition to appropriating previously unowned aspects. The therapist dialogues these appropriations with the invoked feelings, allowing him to differentiate those aspects of his feeling-state which are authentically his from those which are unowned aspects of the patient's aspects of his world that were closed to him while under the influence of the patient, in addition to appropriating previously unowned aspects. The therapist dialogues these appropriations with the invoked feelings, allowing him to differentiate those aspects of his feeling-state which are authentically his from those which are unowned aspects of the patient's world that he has been forced to embody. Through this process the therapist clarifies and gives meaning to his feelings. The therapist fee1s re1ieved and lighter, when in the service of the therapy, he temporarily gives himself over to the patient's experience of him, without feeling drawn to either disowning or appropriating it, while simultaneously remaining open to his own authentic reality. These findings were dialogued with the literature on projective identification.

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It was proposed that the optimal matching of psychotherapy approach to selected patient characteristics results in improved treatment outcome. Three patient dimensions were identified as contributing specific predictive power in determining the effectiveness of several types of treatment: symptom complexity, style of psychological defense, and reactance potential. Symptom complexity level was held relatively constant by studying a sample of psychiatric inpatients, who were admitted to a teaching hospital for short-term care and treated in individual psychotherapy by psychiatric residents and psychology interns. Patient defensive style was assessed in terms of an internalization/externalization ratio, derived from patient MMPI scores, and was hypothesized to differentially affect outcome depending on the degree of patient-therapist match in terms of an internalized versus externalized focus of therapeutic approach. Patient reactance potential was assessed by the Control Wanted subscale of the FIRO-B, and was hypothesized to be optimally matched by varying levels of therapy directiveness. Therapeutic approach was assessed by scores on the Theoretical Orientation Questionnaire. Outcome was assessed by three independent sources: therapist discharge ratings of global improvement, pre- and posttreatment patient ratings on a standardized symptom index, and nurses' ratings of ward behavior at the beginning and end of treatment. These measures constituted the dependent variables in a series of multiple regression analyses, which also included a number of patient background and collateral treatment variables as potential predictors. Results indicated that, after accounting for pretreatment levels of disturbance, the match between patient defensive style and internal/external focus of therapeutic approach was a significant predictor of treatment outcome. The degree of patient-therapist match on this dimension accounted for 9% and 8% of the variability in posttreatment measures of patient symptomatology and ward behavior, respectively. Matching with respect to patient reactance potential and therapy directiveness was not seen to affect outcome, and no effects due to matching were observed for therapists' ratings. Results are discussed in terms of validity and reliability of the ratings, problems in assessment from the different vantage points of patient/therapist/observer, and biases deriving from the use of self-report instruments.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of client gender and counselor gender on the counselor's perception of the psychological attributes of the client. The hypotheses were stated in the null form.Fifty-six subjects volunteered to participate in the study. Subjects were first stratified into groups of equal size according to gender. Utilizing a table of random numbers, one-half of the female subjects was assigned to the female client treatment group, and the other half of the female subjects was assigned to the male client treatment group. The same procedure was utilized in assigning the male subjects to the two treatment groups. These procedures resulted in four groups, each containing fourteen persons. The subjects were all students in master's level classes in counseling, enrolled in Ball Stated University's European Program.The clients in the study were portrayed by two individuals, one male and one female, who presented the same text dealing with personal and professional issues. This role-play, recorded in color on video-film, was presented to the subjects as a client discussing personal issues. Each subject viewed either the male or the female client on video-film.The counselor's perception of the client's psychological attributes was measured by comparing the number of favorable versus the number of unfavorable adjectives of the Adjective Check List (ACL), which, for purposes of this study, was utilized as an observer report. All subjects were tested during the Summer Quarter of 1982, utilizing a Posttest-Only Control Group Design.Hypothesis I was tested by means of a Two-way Analysis of Variance. The results of the first hypothesis were not significant at the .05 level, and the null hypothesis was not rejected. Hypothesis II was also tested through a Two-way Analysis of Variance, and the results were significant at the .05 level. Therefore, the null hypothesis for the second hypothesis was rejected. Hypothesis III was tested through a One-way Analysis of Variance, and the results were also significant at the .05 level. Consequently, the null hypothesis was rejected.

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In this study the position was taken that therapist self-disclosure could be utilized as an intake interview intervention. It was believed that initiating a working therapeutic relationship would appear to require the ability to collect pertinent and reliable information from the client. Mutual self-disclosure is an important vehicle for enchance the therapeutic relationship (Curtis, 1981; Jourard, 1971). Self-disclosure assists therapists in obtaining vital client information and in establishing a strong, trusting, clinical relationship (Curtis, 1981). The utilization of self-disclosure between client and therpaist serves (Jourard & Friedman, 1970) as encouragement for success and growth in therapy and thus "encourages the development of trust" (Curtis, 1981, p. 502). Moreover, the client is expected to disclose personal information often in a setting in which he/she knows little about the trustworthiness of his therapist that presumes immediacy and accuracy without trust.."the patient's own disclosures, with which the therapists can recognize, identify, and articulate counter-productive patterns, cannot be assured inasmuch as the patient might not be motivated to reveal such personal information without at least receiving the impression of the therapist's reciprocity" (Curtis, 1981, pp. 502, 503). / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services