Activating the corrective emotional experience.

Since the concept of the corrective emotional experience was first introduced, an impressive body of research has supported the contention that patient in-session processing of painful emotional conflicts within a safe and empathic relationship is necessary for therapeutic change. In this article, I summarize what we know about how emotions can be accessed, expressed, and processed within the therapeutic relationship to bring about a corrective emotional experience. I then provide clinical vignettes and data on three patients, all of whom displayed distinct patterns of arousal, experience, expression, and depth of processing that were differentially related to outcome in short-term emotion-focused therapy.

Rorschach oral dependency in psychopaths, sexual homicide perpetrators, and nonviolent pedophiles.

Rorschach Oral Dependency scores (Masling, Rabie, & Blondheim, 1967) were compared among nonsexually offending psychopaths (NSOPs, n = 32), sexual homicide perpetrators (SHPs, n = 38), and non-violent pedophiles (NVPs, n = 39) as initially reported by Gacono, Meloy, and Bridges (2000). The aggressive special scores of Gacono and Meloy (1994; Gacono, unpublished doctoral dissertation, 1998) were also scored and compared with ROD scores. Consistent with theory and predictions, NVPs were found to have significantly higher levels of oral dependency scores than NSOPs or SHPs.