Inledning: Det har funnits många aspekter av vad som påverkat psykoterapeuter i deras yrkesutövning.I forskning har psykoterapeuter uttryckt att den egna psykoterapin har varit en av de viktigas erfarenheterna i den egna utvecklingen som psykoterapeuter. Frågeställning: Hur har psykoterapeuter upplevt den egna psykoterapins påverkan på yrkesutövningen och har olika perioder av terapi haft olika inflytande? Metod: Denna studie har varit kvalitativ, i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer, med sju stycken psykodynamiskt utbildade psykoterapeuter. Förutom intervjuer har också tidigare forskning och litteratur i ämnet redovisats.Bearbetning av resultatet har skett i tematisk analys. Resultat: Psykoterapeuternas egen psykoterapi har påverkat dem inom flera områden i deras yrkesutövning. Främsta skälet till att de har gått i egen terapi har varit personliga svårigheter men också utbildningskrav. Diskussion: Psykoterapeuterna har upplevt att den egna psykoterapin har stort inflytande på olika delar av identiteten som psykoterapeut. De har inte varit lika lätt att skilja ut olika perioder av terapi och deras påverkan. En hypotes har varit att olika terapier och livserfarenheter har byggt på varandra och resulterat i att psykoterapeuter senare i livet har en annan beredskap att klara sina egna och andras livskriser. / Introduction: Thera have been many aspects of what has influenced psychotherapist on their practice. in research has psychotherapist expressed that their own psychotherpy is one of the most important experience for their growth as therapists. Problem: How has psychotherapist experienced their own psychotherapys influence on their profession and has different episodes of therapy different influence? Method: This has been a qualitative study, with semistructured interviews, with seven psychodynamic psychotherapists. Besides interviews have also previous research and litterature on the subject been reported.Processing has taken place into the theamtic analysis. Results: Psychotherapists own psychotherapy has affected them in several areas of their professional. Main reason that they have gone into self-therapy has been for personal difficulties but also educational requirements. Discussion: Psychotherapists have experienced that their own psychotherapy has great influence on various parts of their identity as therapists. It has not been as easy to distinguish different periods of therapy and its impact. One hypothesis has been that various therapies and life experiences have built on each other and resulted in psychotherapist in later life has different capacity to cope with theirown and others life crisis.

Clinical judgment faith bias is a hypothesized tendency for clinicians to make more pathological judgments for clients with socially nonnormative faith than for otherwise identical clients with socially normative faith. To test for clinical judgment faith bias, Dillman’s (2007) Tailored Design method for mail and internet surveys was employed. A random sample of 141 psychologists in clinical practice completed a series of questionnaires measuring clinician religiousness and spirituality, view of faith helpfulness, multicultural awareness and knowledge, and diagnostic and prognostic judgments of a clinical vignette describing a client with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and two manipulated attributes: magnitude of faith (low, moderate, or high) and type of faith (religious or spiritual). Five multivariate multiple regression analyses were conducted, with a series of follow-up multivariate tests. The results of the analyses were not significant. The magnitude of faith in the vignette did not influence the diagnostic or prognostic judgments of clinicians, clinicians did not make significantly different judgments for religious cases than for spiritual cases, and faith magnitude did not interact with faith type. Furthermore, clinician attributes did not appear to affect clinical judgments in any way. Implications are discussed for theory, research and clinical practice. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-45).

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-65).

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 86-87).

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-59).

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 50-51).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2005. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-149). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

M. Psych. (Educational Psychology) / The high child sexual abuse rate in South Africa and all over the world makes these cases a reality for educational psychologists practising today. Equineassisted psychotherapy is a relatively new field in psychology, and research shows that this therapeutic intervention can have a very significant impact on people. Sexual abuse leaves children with psychological effects (Beitchman, Zucker, Hood, DaCosta & Akman, 1991) ranging from intrapersonal problems such as low self-esteem and feeling emotionally overwhelmed to interpersonal problems resulting in communication and relationship challenges (Mandrell, 2006). According to Kidson (2012), equine-assisted therapy deals very well with such issues as well as self-concept, self-efficacy and self-acceptance. These issues correlate well with the effects of child sexual abuse and the issues that the therapist needs to deal with in the therapeutic sessions (Conte & Scheumann, 2011). Seeing the possibilities that equine-assisted therapy held for a therapist working with a case of sexual abuse, I inquired in terms of the involved systemic influences and experiences. The study investigated the experiences of the therapist, the client and the parents when using equine-assisted psychotherapy in a case of sexual abuse. The study attempted to identify themes that could explain these experiences and maybe make a contribution to the field of equine-assisted psychotherapy, specifically pertaining to work with sexual abuse cases. I made use of a phenomenological, qualitative case study design to explore the experiences of the participants. The data collection methods included interviews, field notes and observations. Artefacts were used to aid the researcher in the observation process but also to help the researcher explain the findings in Chapter 4. Furthermore, creative expressive arts therapy tools were used in the interviews to assist the participants in expressing their experiences regarding the equine-assisted therapy process. Data was analysed using the phenomenological data analysis process. This process is al about “being true to the phenomenon”. The first step in this research was to transcribe the interview recordings. Using the transcribed text, the field notes and the observations, the researcher then identified units of general meaning. Out of the units of general meanings, themes were identified. In the findings, three themes were identified: equine-assisted therapy, an empowering life changing experience; the extent to which active engagement with horses assist in expressing emotions; and the equine-assisted therapy process and therapeutic experience. The limitations and strengths of the research were also explained and discussed. Subsequently, recommendations were made for possible future research that evolved from the study’s findings.

This study examined the ethical decision-making process as it transpired in the everyday context of the therapeutic space. In-depth interviews explored the subjective experiences of six South African psychologists, practicing as psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and their efforts to resolve real-life ethical dilemmas. The theoretical framework used to interpret the data subsumed professional literature in psychology on principle-based ethical decision-making as well as contemporary psychoanalytic debates on the phenomenon of countertransference enactments. A review of ethics codes, survey research and seminal decision-making frameworks suggests that ethical dilemmas have traditionally been resolved by recourse to an objective and impartial “principle ethics” perspective. Empirical evidence shows, however, that logical thinking and the rational application of codes, principles and standards are often insufficient to secure ethical action. The establishment of reflective space and the core theoretical notion of “ethical decision-making enactments” were proposed in order to address the subjective, irrational and unconscious dimension of professional decision-making. This study used a broadly hermeneutic research method which transformed participants‟ descriptions of engagement with real-life dilemmas into a psychoanalytically informed interpretive account of ethical decision-making. Twelve aspirational ethical principles were found to guide participants‟ daily analytic work. Beneficence was the principle most strongly identified with and nonmaleficence was the most neglected ethical principle. Unprocessed countertransference responses were shown to drive earlier prereflective phases of the ethical decision-making process. Mature ethical judgment was predicated upon the retrospective analysis of enactment phenomena. Dissatisfaction was expressed by all participants with regard to the role of professional resources in aiding the resolution of stressful ethical dilemmas. Risk factors for compromised professional decision-making included the paucity and perceived irrelevance of postgraduate ethics training, supervisory failure to confront the ethical and countertransference dimensions of common dilemmas and professional isolation. Rather than eliciting the hope of emotional support and greater insight, professional resources on the contrary mostly appeared to induce anxiety, mistrust and fearfulness. Based on the data and the literature, a pragmatic psychoanalytically informed ethical decision-making model was finally generated. The model, which considers both principle ethics as well as countertransference phenomena, offers a preliminary contribution to professional dialogue on the development and evaluation of empirically based decision-making frameworks. Practical recommendations are made for both the revision of the current South African ethics code and for improving the postqualifying ethics education of psychoanalytic practitioners and supervisors. The limitations of the data are discussed and directions for future research initiatives are proposed.