Brain activation during autobiographical relationship episode narratives: a core conflictual relationship theme approach.

The authors combined the core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) method and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify brain regions involved in recall of autobiographical relationship episodes, a key process in psychotherapy. Relationship narratives were obtained from healthy subjects and scored for CCRT relationship themes and emotion. Autobiographical personal and nonautobiographical control narratives were presented in a block-design fMRI experiment.

Changes in defensive functioning in completed psychoanalyses: the penn psychoanalytic treatment collection.

Theory predicts that patients completing psychoanalysis should improve in their dynamic functioning. The aim of this naturalistic study is to examine whether a sample of 17 subjects from the Penn Psychoanalytic Treatment Collection with completed, tape-recorded psychoanalyses demonstrated improvement in one dynamic aspect: their defense mechanisms. The pre-post effect size for the change in overall defensive functioning (ODF) of the sample was large (.

The history and empirical status of key psychoanalytic concepts.

Over the past century, the ideas set out in psychoanalytic theory have permeated the field of psychology as well as literature, art, and culture. Despite this popularity, analytic theory has only recently received empirical support. In this chapter, we seek to highlight several fundamental concepts of analytic theory (the unconscious, drives, defenses, object relations, Oedipus complex) and psychodynamic treatments (transference, countertransference, interpretations, resistance).

The Same Old Song?-Stability and Change in Relationship Schemas From Adolescence to Young Adulthood.

Relationship schemas are core elements of personality that guide interpersonal functioning. The aim of this study is to examine stability and change in relationship schemas across two developmental epochs-adolescence and young adulthood-in the stories that people tell about their interactions with others. Using the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme Method, relationship themes were coded from semistructured interviews conducted in adolescence and again at age 25.