A concept originating from the Ancient Greeks, courage has long held cultural definitions from literature, philosophy, and theology. However, the construct of courage has largely been neglected in the extant psychological literature despite a significant influence on the human condition. The Tri-Part Model of Courage (Geller, 2014) served as a primary guiding framework for the present study, conceptualizing courage as comprised of three subtypes: bravery, boldness, and fortitude. This study sought to contribute to the ongoing development of this model through examination of the experience and expression of courage by experienced psychodynamic psychotherapists so as to render the construct useful in clinical and psychotherapy research contexts. Participants were 16 experienced psychodynamic psychotherapists. In-person semi- structured interviews were conducted and analyzed using the Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) methodology. Ten domains emerged from the CQR analysis and revealed courage to be a subjective experience consisting of private theories, as well common definitional elements. Participants spontaneously endorsed the existence and importance of bravery, boldness, and fortitude in their role as psychotherapists, indicating the centrality of courage to their work. Authenticity, vulnerability, and staying present emerged as the most salient expressions of therapist courage. Specific patient presentations and therapeutic processes were identified as situations most requiring of therapist courage. Experience was the principal enabling factor to courage, and fear and avoidance were the principal obstacles to courage, while feelings associated with courageous acts ranged from fear, anxiety, and pain, to positive states of well being. Validation, confrontational techniques, modeling, and skills building were the most preferred clinical interventions to promote courage in patients. Gender analysis revealed that women make meaning of courage as having bases in fear and interpersonal relationships, while men understand courage as a set of abstract principles defined by existential anxiety and bold interventions. Fortitude was highly endorsed across genders, and men were further more oriented to fortitude, while female therapists were more oriented to bravery and boldness. The results are discussed in terms of the empirical support provided for the expansion of the Tri-Part Model of Courage and recommendations for clinical practice and future research.

Thesis (M.A. (Hons.)) -- University of Western Sydney, 2003. / "Master of Arts (Honours) Art Therapy" Bibliography : leaves 161-168.

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-53).

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, IL, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-53).

Thesis (Ph. D. (Psychology))--Rhodes University, 2005. / "A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychotherapy" -T.p.

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, IL, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-53).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Duquesne University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-198) and index.

Anorexia nervosa är en allvarlig psykologisk sjukdom med hög dödlighet. Studien vill belysa den psykodynamiska terapin som behandlingsmetod vid anorexia nervosa. Frågeställning: Vilka är de verksamma faktorerna i psykodynamisk psykoterapi vid behandling av anorexia nervosa? Semistrukturerade kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer har genomförts med fem kvinnliga psykodynamiskt inriktade psykoterapeuter. Intervjumaterialet har bearbetats och analyserats utifrån tematisk analys (TA). Resultatet visade att det mest verksamma vid behandlingen av anorexia nervosa var att lyckas bryta igenom patientens avvisande förhållningssätt, motstå attacker samt att nå en stark allians. Resultatet visade också att psykoterapeutens syn på patientens symtom och självbild ofta yttrade sig i motöverföringsreaktioner såsom ilska, frustration och känsla av maktlöshet. Tid och kontinuitet uppfattades som viktiga faktorer för det kliniska behandlingsarbetet, liksom att kunna erbjuda psykoterapi efter det att patienten nått viktmål enligt DSM-IV. Undersökningen visade att den psykoterapeutiska relationen i sig anses vara den mest verksamma faktorn vid behandling av anorexia nervosa. Den visade att interaktionen mellan patient och terapeut, den terapeutiska alliansen, uppfattades som den faktor som mest gynnar tillfrisknande för patienter med anorexia nervosa, en sjukdom med ett ofta långdraget förlopp.

The purpose of this study was to explore how personal therapy influences experienced psychodynamic psychotherapists’ ways of being clinicians, and, by implication, their professional development. A hermeneutic research method, which also drew upon aspects of grounded theory methodology, was therefore devised to explore and examine how personal therapy and professional practice relate to each other and to the therapist’s development, and to deepen this descriptive account into a more differentiated and theoretically viable understanding. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight psychodynamic psychotherapists who were working as clinicians and who were concurrently in therapy. Keeping the research objective in mind, a list of questions was developed from the interview material through which the data was re-read and edited. In accordance with the aims of the study, and as suggested by the results of the initial phase of the textual analysis, intersubjective theory, mainly that of Jessica Benjamin, was used to generate a conceptual framework through which the interview material was further interpreted. This foregrounded the shifting power distributions and the varying processes of identification between the treating therapists and the participants. The Jungian notion of the wounded healer was intersubjectively reconfigured as indicating a therapist whose (often unacknowledged) needs and vulnerabilities engender a proclivity to relate to patients as objects rather than subjects. The participants could all be described as having started out their professional lives as wounded healers. The effects of personal therapy on their clinical work were conceptualised in terms of increased abilities for subject-to-subject relating. These were linked to augmented capacities for reflective and symbolic thinking and an enhanced openness to the implicit, unformulated and opaque aspects of experiences in the therapeutic space. Finally an intersubjective model of personal therapy and development as a therapist was generated. It was concluded that because of the focus on the therapeutic relationship as the vehicle for change in psychodynamic psychotherapy, as well as the current increasing emphasis on the use of the therapist’s subjectivity, the therapist’s capacity to engage in and sustain subject-tosubject relating and, by implication, the therapist’s personal therapy, are of pivotal importance for all therapists doing the work of psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Dagens informationssamhälle, erbjuder nya sätt att interagera, att etablera relationer och att bibehålla kontakten mellan människor.Teknologi och terapi blir ett sätt att upprätthålla en terapeutisk relation med hjälp av Skype som informationsteknologiskt hjälpmedel. Syftet med studien är att undersöka psykoterapeuters upplevelser avden terapeutiska relationen inom psykodynamisk psykoterapi via videokommunikation. Frågeställningarna fokuserar på terapeuternas användning av de psykodynamiska teorierna, beskrivning av den terapeutiska relationen samt hur den terapeutiska alliansen byggs vid videokommunikation. Studien hade en kvalitativ forskningsansats med en hermeneutisk metod. Sex terapeuter som bedrev terapi på Skype harintervjuats. Resultaten visar att terapeuterna upplevde att det fanns en distans i relationen som kunde användas positivt för att utreda något djupare i terapin. Terapierna blev mer ordrika då överföringaroch motöverföringar inte kunde identifieras lika lätt som vid ett fysiskt möte. Den terapeutiska alliansen upplevdes skörare på Skype. Slutsatser av studien var att bedriva en psykodynamisk psykoterapi på Skype behövde terapeuterna anpassa teorin till teknologin. Distansen irelationen användes som ett hjälpmedel för att terapin skulle utvecklas till en insiktsterapi men kunde även verka till att försvaren förstärktes. / Today's information society, is offering new ways to interact, to establish relationships and maintain contact between people.Technology and therapy is a way to maintain a therapeutic relationship with the help of Skype as an information technology tools. The purpose of the study is to examine psychotherapist’s experiences of the therapeutic relationship in psychodynamic psychotherapy via videocommunication. Research questions focuses on the psychotherapists' use of psychodynamic theories, the description of the therapeutic relationship and how the therapeutic alliance is being built in videocommunications. The study was a qualitative research approach with a hermeneutic method. Six therapists who pursued therapy via Skype were interviewed. The results show that therapists felt that there was a distance in the relationship which could be used positively to investigate deeper into the therapy. The therapies became wordier as transferense and countertrancferences could not be identified as easily as in a physical meeting. The therapeutic alliance felt more fragile on Skype. Discussions from the study shows in order to pursue a psychodynamic psychotherapy on Skype the therapists needed to adapt the theory to the technology. The distance in the relationship was used as a means of therapy to be developed into insight therapy but could also seem to strengthen the defenses.