Psychodyn Psychiatry
December 2022
The aim of this article is to show how the plan formulation method (PFM), an empirically validated method for case formulation based on control mastery theory (CMT), can help clinicians make sense of and use what they feel during sessions to better understand and treat their patients. We give a brief overview of the main psychoanalytic conceptions about countertransference, provide a brief introduction to CMT, and describe the concept of the plan and the PFM. We then show, using several brief clinical examples, how the components of the plan (patient's goals, pathogenic beliefs, traumas, tests, and insights) may help understand clinicians' in-session feelings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this article is to present validation data about a self-report rating scale for the assessment of interpersonal guilt according to Control-Mastery Theory (CMT; Silbershatz, 2005; Weiss, 1993; Weiss, Sampson, & The Mount Zion Psychotherapy Research Group, 1986), the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-15s (IGRS-15s). In order to perform the validation of this tool in an Italian sample we have collected a sample of 645 nonclinical subjects. They had to complete the IGRS-15s, the Scale for the Measurement of the Impending Punishment (SMIP; Caprara et al.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article introduces the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-15 (IGRS-15), a brief clinician-rated tool for the clinical assessment of interpersonal guilt as conceived in Control-Mastery Theory (CMT; Silberschatz, 2015; Weiss, 1993), and its psychometric proprieties. The items of the IGRS-15 were derived from the CMT clinical and empirical literature about guilt, and from the authors' clinical experiences. Twenty-eight clinicians assessed 154 patients with the IGRS-15, the patient self-reported Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire-67 (IGQ-67; O'Connor, Berry, Weiss, Bush, & Sampson, 1997), and the Clinical Data Form (CDF; Westen & Shedler, 1999).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article presents some quantitative findings from a survey of 89 psychoanalysts (all members of the American Psychoanalytic Association or the International Psychoanalytical Association) about their own experiences in analysis. A comprehensive questionnaire was used to collect retrospective data about (1) how participants felt they benefited from their analyses and (2) how they remembered their analysts' technique, personality, and style of relating. A correlational analysis found that, according to our participants' ratings, the most beneficial analyses were associated with having a caring and emotionally engaged analyst who possessed positive relational and personality qualities, used supportive techniques in addition to classical techniques, and pursued therapeutic as well as analytic goals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF