No description available.

No description available.

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.

Most of the research related to psychotherapy is about modality, treatments and therapeutic outcomes. There is little research on the psychotherapists themselves; their subjective experiences, their preparation or personal development. Personal growth, which leads to a developmental level permitting self-reflection and relational ability, is considered by the psychotherapy profession to be an important aspect of the psychotherapist's education. This hermeneutic study focuses on students' experience of personal growth during a formal psychotherapy educational programme. The core of the thesis is the presentation of the students' lived experience during training. Recent graduates of psychotherapy programmes were interviewed and their accounts include the process of personal growth, in what ways the developmental journey was felt to be supportive and containing, ways graduates feel changed, the impact on their lives during and after the training, and the meanings they ascribe to the experience. The particular growth experiences of Maori graduates are to some degree explored, as are the experiences of psychotherapy teachers who facilitate personal development. Themes emerged from data analysis; personal growth did happen, was felt to be positive, and took place as a journey. The growth process was turbulent, painful, yet resulted in positive outcomes for the graduates. Love and relationship were experienced as the most significant catalyst in promoting growth towards key outcomes. It was felt that bicultural learning activities enhanced and supported growth for Maori and non-Maori. The nature and complexity of love is discussed; including the place of love in personal change, psychotherapy and psychotherapy training. The discomfort commonly experienced in the profession around describing the therapeutic relationship as one involving love is highlighted. Possible reasons are given for this, for not using the word love in psychotherapy. Implications for psychotherapy education arising from the research are presented; with questions about, and recommendations for, facilitating personal growth, and the utilisation of love in a more open and conscious manner as a part of psychotherapy training. Currently most preparation of psychotherapists occurs in mainstream academic institutions, with a movement in the profession towards more formal qualifications. It is a challenge for educators and students alike to continue to include in traditional academic structures and processes what is felt to be the essence of psychotherapy; love and relationship, the practice of which requires high levels of personal development.

Most of the research related to psychotherapy is about modality, treatments and therapeutic outcomes. There is little research on the psychotherapists themselves; their subjective experiences, their preparation or personal development. Personal growth, which leads to a developmental level permitting self-reflection and relational ability, is considered by the psychotherapy profession to be an important aspect of the psychotherapist's education. This hermeneutic study focuses on students' experience of personal growth during a formal psychotherapy educational programme. The core of the thesis is the presentation of the students' lived experience during training. Recent graduates of psychotherapy programmes were interviewed and their accounts include the process of personal growth, in what ways the developmental journey was felt to be supportive and containing, ways graduates feel changed, the impact on their lives during and after the training, and the meanings they ascribe to the experience. The particular growth experiences of Maori graduates are to some degree explored, as are the experiences of psychotherapy teachers who facilitate personal development. Themes emerged from data analysis; personal growth did happen, was felt to be positive, and took place as a journey. The growth process was turbulent, painful, yet resulted in positive outcomes for the graduates. Love and relationship were experienced as the most significant catalyst in promoting growth towards key outcomes. It was felt that bicultural learning activities enhanced and supported growth for Maori and non-Maori. The nature and complexity of love is discussed; including the place of love in personal change, psychotherapy and psychotherapy training. The discomfort commonly experienced in the profession around describing the therapeutic relationship as one involving love is highlighted. Possible reasons are given for this, for not using the word love in psychotherapy. Implications for psychotherapy education arising from the research are presented; with questions about, and recommendations for, facilitating personal growth, and the utilisation of love in a more open and conscious manner as a part of psychotherapy training. Currently most preparation of psychotherapists occurs in mainstream academic institutions, with a movement in the profession towards more formal qualifications. It is a challenge for educators and students alike to continue to include in traditional academic structures and processes what is felt to be the essence of psychotherapy; love and relationship, the practice of which requires high levels of personal development.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2007 / Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Social Work. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-80).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Charles Chen.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2007 / Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Social Work. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-38).

Given the rise of intersubjective theory (Marzi, Hautman & Maestro, 2006) and contemporary formulations of countertransference as an integral aspect of the psychotherapeutic process (Cassorla, 2005; Marchon, 2006), understandings of countertransference are still being developed and explored in the psychoanalytic literature. This study explores beginning psychotherapists’ experiences and understandings of countertransference and countertransference-related phenomena. In depth data was obtained from five volunteer psychotherapists in their first three years of practice who were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule. These interviews were analysed using a psychoanalytically informed narrative methodology. The need for an experiential model of countertransference that remains true to the often alive, elusive and indescribable nature of countertransference experiences was a central finding of the project. A secondary focus of the research was the therapists’ development of their sense of professional identity. The paucity of research exploring the interaction of countertransference and professional identity development rendered this an important area of investigation. The effect of this process upon the way in which the beginning psychotherapists made sense of their countertransference experiences, was a finding of further significance.

My research explores the lived experience of envy amongst psychotherapists and between psychotherapists in a psychotherapeutic community in New Zealand. It focuses on bringing the experience of envy out of hiddenness and into language.It then explores the understandings and the possibilities of meanings that these experiences have. Previous literature on envy has for the most part discussed the clients' envy for the psychotherapist, and very little has been written about the therapists' envy for the client. My research turns the focus to the psychotherapist as it looks at their envy for each other.As I was interested in the therapists' lived experiences of envy, I chose hermeneutic phenomenology as the methodology to explore these. I drew on the philosophical underpinnings offered by Heidegger, Gadamer and van Manen.What arose from my in-depth conversations with psychotherapists is that while envy is an experienced phenomenon that is for the most part not spoken, the powerful feelings that it evokes have great impact on both those who envy and those who are envied. Envy showed up as arising in a relational context, with perception, time and anxiety as contextual determinants. These, along with the findings of the lived experience of envy as a binding between self and other, as threatening to self and other and as a means of connecting with self and other, are some of the essential points discussed in my thesis.This study provides a starting point for a further exploration of the experience of envy amongst psychotherapists as well as envy's impact on who we are in ourselves and how we are with each other, both personally and professionally.