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Intensifying and Integrating Deep Affect
DYNAMIC EMOTION-FOCUSED THERAPY (DEFT)

Blending the Best of Empirically-Based Attachment Approaches
 

Videotape Analysis, Skill-Building Role Plays, Lectures and Discussion

with

Susan Warren Warshow, LCSW, MFT

10 Saturdays in 2012 from 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 P.M.
February 11, March 10, April 14, and May 12, June 23, July 14,
September 8, October 13 and November 10, December 8

Skirball Cultural Center
2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Room 160, Los Angeles, CA 90049
Space is limited.
Buffet luncheon provided.
 

CLICK HERE for registration form

Contact Susan Warshow at swarshow@me.com
or call 818-703-1145 for more information.

Participants will discover a DEFT approach that is accelerated, affect and somatic-focused, experiential and psychodynamic and will have the option to pursue three levels of certification over the course of three years (see below). The skills to be taught produce healing through profoundly intimate, attachment experiences in treatment that transform the relationship to self and others. Clinical video recordings will illustrate the moment-to-moment tracking of anxiety, shame, guilt, and defense that enables the patient to experience and integrate exiled emotional states.
 
The theoretical principles that inspire this course have significant empirical validation with even the most difficult patients. Though the material is complex, the instructors make it “user-friendly” by breaking it down into digestible components and create fun in the process (it helps to be learning in a space that is adjacent to a lovely patio and an exquisite lily pond!).
 
Participants will learn to rapidly identify defenses and help their patients to relinquish them using a compassionate style that incorporates a unique blend of powerful elements. Another signature aspect of this course is the instructors’ attention to the well-being of therapists learning to master challenging new skills. 
 
“Affect phobia,” a term coined by Leigh McCullough, Ph.D., afflicts therapists as well as patients. To desensitize clinicians to their own tendencies to avoid intense affects, the instructors will create a supportive environment that helps to develop “warrior therapists,” able to shepherd their patients over frightening emotional terrain as they face intimidating forces of resistance.
 
Non-verbal signals that heighten attachment will be demonstrated, including attuned body language, facial expression, vocal inflection, and genuine compassion transmitted through gaze. Verbal expressions, such as the use of vivid speech and metaphor, help the patient experience a felt connection to the therapeutic process and will also be illustrated.

CURRICULUM:
 
Each session will include videotape microanalysis, comprehensive skill-building role plays, lectures and discussion.

Topics will include:

Awakening the Patient’s Will
Processing Sadness for the Cost of the Defenses
Creating a conscious and unconscious therapeutic alliance
Moment to moment Tracking of Internal Experience
Moving from Externalization to Intrapsychic Awareness
Resourcing and the Awakening of Hope
Assessing and Attending to Anxiety
Tackling Toxic Shame and Guilt
Identifying and Interrupting Defenses with Compassionate Style
Intensifying and Integrating Core Affect
Meta-Processing: Co-Reflecting on the Therapeutic Process

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Clinicians who attend this workshop will be able to:

Facilitate alliances with anxious and self-destructive patients

Describe and apply techniques to help patients transcend resistance.
Identify the action tendencies of core emotions.
Describe and apply techniques to help patients defeat toxic
effects of anxiety, shame and guilt.
Define "Response to Intervention" and apply this technique
to guide treatment.
Recognize indicators of counter-transference difficulties.

This ten-session workshop is intended for licensed clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and registered mental health interns.

Faculty:

Susan Warren Warshow, LCSW, MFT, and Board Certified Diplomate, is a national and international presenter and has published several journal articles on short-term psychodynamic treatment. She is on the faculty of the ISTDP Institute, the Southern California Society for ISTDP and is an IEDTA-Accredited Teacher/Supervisor. She has supervision groups and practices individual and marital therapy in Woodland Hills.

CERTIFICATIONS

Three levels of certification are available through the DEFT program and participants will also be eligible for additional certification from the ISTDP Institute (see below).

After completing Level 1, the first 10 month program, all participants will receive a Certificate of Curriculum Completion in DEFT.

Clinicians who continue to Level 2 and complete a second 10 month block will be eligible for a Certificate of Competence in DEFT.  This certificate requires submission of an audio-visual vignette (30 minutes in length) showing qualifying defense work with a moderately fragile or moderately resistant patient.

Clinicians who continue to Level 3 and complete a third 10 month block will be eligible to become a Certified DEFT Therapist.  This certification requires submission of two audio-visual vignettes (30 to 45 minutes in length) showing qualifying work with an extremely “fragile” patient as well as a highly “resistant” patient.

The ISTDP Institute will also provide a Certificate of Curriculum Completion in “Intensifying and Integrating Deep Affect” to participants who complete the three year program outlined above. In addition, participants are eligible to receive a “Certificate of Competency” from the ISTDP Institute upon approval of qualifying videotape (details to be announced).

VIDEOTAPE SUPERVISION IS STRONGLY ENCOURAGED BUT OPTIONAL

_______________________________________

FEE: 10 sessions at $1950.00 (195.00 per day) before January 15, 2012; 10 sessions at $2025.00 thereafter.  Lunch and materials will be included; additional training materials are optional and will carry a fee. Payment plans can be arranged in cases of financial necessity.

LOCATION: Skirball Cultural Center 2701 North Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049

REGISTRATION: Please contact swarshow@me.com for more details.

CANCELLATIONS AND REFUNDS:  Full refund up to January 6, 2012 minus a $25 fee to cover administrative costs. No refunds after that date.
Important Disclosure and Information for Participants: None of the planners or presenters of this program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.

CE Units: 65 per 10 month program. The International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association (Provider #4796) is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. IEDTA maintains responsibility for the Program and its content. Susan Warren Warshow (Provider #PCE 3853) is approved by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences to provide continuing education units for MFTs and LCSWs in California.

This activity is co-sponsored by the IEDTA. IEDTa is approved by the
American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for
psychologists. IEDTA maintains responsibility for the program and it's
content.
 


 

 

Intensifying Deep Affective Processing
An Experiential Extended Workshop for Psychotherapists

With Clinical Video Illustrations and Skill Building, Role-Playing Practice

Presented by
Susan Warren Warshow, LCSW

 

Dates:
5 Saturdays: August 13th, Sept. 10th,
Oct. 15th and Nov 12, and January 14, 2012
11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Buffet lunch and materials included
 

Location:
Skirball Cultural Center
2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049

CLICK HERE for registration form

Contact Susan Warshow at swarshow@me.com
or call 818-703-1145 for more information.

This five-part workshop will provide therapists with clear, practical teaching in the application of an accelerated emotion-focused dynamic psychotherapy. It will include role-playing of specific interventions for different phases of treatment with a broad spectrum of psychoneurotic disorders. Clinical video recordings will illustrate a transformational process that enables patients to experience their deepest emotions and to integrate the avoided parts of the self.

The course is informed by the discoveries of H. Davanloo, the creator of ISTDP, and includes powerful elements that can be integrated into other therapies. This model has empirical validation with even the most difficult patients. A greater capacity for emotional intimacy and successful attachment is a highly valued benefit to most patients.

Topics will include:

• Identifying Goals for Treatment
• Forming Collaborative Alliance
• Strengthening Self-Reflective Capacity
• Maintaining Affective and Intrapsychic Focus
• Theory and Management of Anxiety, Shame and Guilt
• Rapid Identification and Management of Defenses
• Role-playing and group process.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Clinicians who attend this workshop will be able to:

• Facilitate alliances with anxious and self-destructive clients/patients.

• Help patients turn against their resistance to treatment.
• Identify the action tendencies of core emotions.

• Help patients defeat the toxic effects of anxiety, shame and guilt.

• Choose interventions weighted toward feeling instead of cognition.
• Identify specific defenses in verbal and non-verbal communications.

• Use "Response to Intervention" to guide treatment.

• Utilize the Triangles of Conflict and Person.

• Recognize indicators of counter-transference difficulties.

This five-session workshop is intended for licensed clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and registered mental health interns.

Faculty:

Susan Warren Warshow, LCSW, MFT is a Board Certified Diplomate and is on the faculty of the Southern California Society for Intensive Short- Term Dynamic Psychotherapy and is an IEDTA-accredited teacher and supervisor. She is an international presenter and conducts seminars, training programs and private supervision for professionals in the L.A. area. She has published several journal articles on ISTDP.

FEE: $1000.00

CANCELLATIONS AND REFUNDS: Full refund up to July 23, 2011 minus $25 administrative costs. No refunds after that period.
Important Disclosure: Information for all learners: None of the planners or presenters of this program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.

CE Units: 20 continuing education units for MFTs and LCSWs in California.
CEU’s for Ph.D.’s to be determined.

CLICK HERE for registration form
 

 

Monthly Mondays with Susan
Supervision/Training group in ISTDP/EDT

21241 Ventura Blvd., Suite 251
Woodland Hills, CA 91364
818-703-1145

12:30-2:30 p.m.

Next meeting March 28, 2011 and every 4 weeks thereafter.
$100.00 per meeting.

 

Washington School of Psychiatry
6th Annual Summer Immersion Course
Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy

June 5 -10, 2011

Graves Mountain Lodge, Syria, Virginia
22743

Featuring Susan Warshow, MSW and Jon Frederickson, MSW, Chair

Imagine you are studying with highly skilled Short-Term 
Dynamic Therapy clinicians with a group of devoted students, surrounded by the mountains of the Shenandoah National Park. You are able to study videotapes and discuss clinical issues all day long and party all night with your newfound friends. Surrounded by nature, in the early evening you watch black bears amble down from the mountains to nibble cherries from the nearby orchard. You sit on the porch in front of your room gazing over the mountain valleys watching the sunset. 
This is not a fantasy. It is the School of the Washington Scholl of Psychiatry Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy Training Program. Come join us for our annual intensive training week.

Awakening Hope to Defeat Resistance
By Susan Warshow, MSW

People often come to us in a state of defeat, skepticism and doubt that we can help them. Disappointing prior therapies and aborted efforts at self-improvement may cause them to ask, “What will be different this time?” “I have nothing left.” “I feel empty.” “What can you do?” Suffering is second nature like a parasitic vine attached to an otherwise healthy tree. Yet as we practice ISTDP
and heighten awareness of the perpetrator system (toxic anxiety, guilt, shame and defense), we often see hope and choice spontaneously and breathtakingly emerge. Hope is not as an end point but is a dynamic process that both initiates and propels therapeutic movement.

J. Weinberger’s review of hundreds of outcome studies tells us that “revival of hope” is among the top curative factors. What occurs both internally and within the therapeutic relationship to help generate hope? Hope surfaces in a millisecond and can easily be undetected. How do we rapidly identify it and mine the therapeutic opportunities that hope presents?

Mobilizing a Therapeutic Alliance
By Jon Fredrickson, MSW

How can we mobilize the conscious and unconscious therapeutic alliances with ISTDP if the patient unconsciously attempts to establish a misalliance? How do we help the patient see how she treats herself cruelly as her molesting father did? We will show how to address defenses and mobilize her conscious therapeutic alliance. Also, we will focus on how to recognize and amplify signals from the unconscious therapeutic alliance to grab hold of what is healthy in the patient. And finally, we will show how to help the patient turn against identification with her molesting father so she can face her rage instead.

Location: Graves Mountain Lodge, Syria, Virginia
22743 (www.gravesmountain.com)

Fee: $1700 includes tuition, lodging and meals. Space is limited. Your space is reserved once we receive your fee.

Registration: Contact Debbie Schechtman at dschechtman@wspdc.org  For more information, contact Jon Fredrickson at jfredrickson@verizon.net

Presenters:

Jon Frederickson, MSW, is the co-chair of the ISTDP training program at the Washington School of Psychiatry, chair of the ISTDP Core Training for the Norwegian Society for ISTDP and on the faculties of the Italian ISTDP Society and the Southern California Society for ISTDP.He is the author of/Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: Learning to Listen from Multiple Perspectives /and several articles on ISTDP.

Susan Warren Warshow, MSW
 

 

 

 

 

 

Intensifying Deep Affective Processing
An Extended Workshop for Psychotherapists

with Clinical Video Illustrations

Presented by
Thomas M. Brod, MD and Susan Warren Warshow, LCSW

 

Dates:
5 Saturdays: January 8, February 12, March 12,
April 2, and May 14, 2011
10:30-3:30 p.m.

Location:
Skirball Cultural Center
2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049

This five-part workshop will provide therapists with clear and practical teaching in the application of an accelerated affect-focused dynamic psychotherapy. Clinical video recordings will illustrate a transformational process that enables patients to experience their truest emotional self and also to integrate the avoided parts of the self. The course is informed by the discoveries of H. Davanloo, the creator of ISTDP, and includes powerful elements that can be integrated into other therapies.


This model has empirical validation with even the most difficult patients. A greater capacity for emotional intimacy and successful attachment is perhaps the most valued benefit to most patients.

There will be four hours of lectures, demonstrations and group discussion in each session; a buffet luncheon will be provided.

Topics will include:

• Identifying Goals for Treatment
• Forming a Collaborative Alliance
• Strengthening Self-Reflective Capacity
• Maintaining Affective and Intrapsychic Focus
• Theory and Management of Anxiety, Shame and Guilt
• Rapid Identification and Management of Defenses
• Training group process.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Clinicians who attend this workshop will be able to:

• Facilitate alliances with anxious and self-destructive clients/patients.

• Help patients turn against their resistance to treatment.
• Identify the action tendencies of core emotions.

• Help patients defeat the toxic effects of anxiety, shame and guilt.

• Choose interventions weighted toward feeling instead of cognition.
• Identify specific defenses in verbal and non-verbal communications.

• Use "Response to Intervention" to guide treatment.

• Utilize the triangles of conflict and person.

• Recognize indicators of counter-transference difficulties.

This five-session workshop is intended for licensed clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and registered mental health interns.

Faculty:

Thomas Brod, MD is Associate Clinical Professor, Psychiatry, Geffen UCLA School of Medicine, faculty New Center for Psychoanalysis, and in private practice. He has studied ISTDP with Robert Neborsky MD and Habib Davanloo MD; he is co-vice-president of the Southern Californian Society for ISTDP.

Susan Warren Warshow, LCSW, MFT is a Board Certified Diplomate and practices psychotherapy in Woodland Hills for individuals and couples. She conducts seminars, training programs and private supervision for professionals in the L.A./Pasadena area. She has presented internationally and published several journal articles on ISTDP.
 


“The Man Who Was Convinced He Couldn’t Feel”
An introduction to Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP)

 CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS

Woodland Hills Country Club

21150 Dumetz Road

Woodland Hills, CA 91364

(NO DENIM ALLOWED IN THE COUNTRY CLUB)

Sunday, February 6, 2011
8:30-11:00 A.M.

Susan Warren Warshow, MSW, LCSW, will introduce ISTDP by way of a video presentation consisting of actual therapy with the client together accompanied by running commentary about what she was doing and why. Members will have an opportunity during the last half hour of the presentation to discuss ISTDP at their tables then each table will choose a representative to present comments and questions to the presenter for her comment.   

 


Thwarting the Transmission of Trauma
Through Deep Affective Processing

Presented by
Robin L. Kay, Ph.D. and Susan Warren Warshow, LCSW

Friday, December 17, 2010: 1:00 to 6:00
and/or Saturday, December 18, 2010: 1:00 to 5:30
Westwood, California (location TBA)

$60 for Day 1 only OR $100 for Both days

Registration is limited!

Early Registration Deadline: December 10, 2010

Download Registration Form

This choice of one or two-day program will offer participants an opportunity to observe and absorb deep affective work with patients.

Both instructors specialize in ISTDP: an affect-focused, accelerated psychotherapy that helps patients access and process intense and complex emotions and break the intergenerational cycle of abuse (of self and others).

Day 1: The program will begin with a brief overview of attachment theory and ISTDP principles. Next, theoretical and technical information will be presented on the therapeutic repair of psycho-trauma which involves helping patients access and process deep and conflictual emotion. Each presenter will provide video demonstration of intensive therapy with patients who have been victimized by traumatized caregivers, i.e., parents who were abused, neglected, and/or psychologically damaged.

Day 2: the presenters will again show videotaped session excerpts and will stop the tapes to allow for questions, interactive discussion and greater integration of the therapeutic process. Questions will be encouraged to better understand how to choose and when to apply effective interventions to deepen affect and accelerate therapy. Experiential skill-building exercises will enhance the learning process. We will also focus on understanding and managing our own human feelings and reactions while helping our patients explore their painful abuse accompanied by intense, conflictual and complex feelings.

Susan Warren Warshow, LCSW, MFT is a Board Certified Diplomate and Practices psychotherapy for individuals and couples in Woodland Hills. She conducts seminars, training programs and private supervision in the L.A./S.F.V. area. She has presented her clinical work internationally and has published several journal articles on ISTDP. For more info call (818) 703-1145.

Robin L. Kay, Ph.D, Assistant Clinical Professor, Psychiatry, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, is Coordinator of the Los Angeles Core Training Group for the Southern California Society for ISTDP and maintains a private practice in Westwood where she treats patients and supervises clinicians. She has published articles on Attachment -Based ISTDP and presented her clinical work locally and internationally. For more information, go to www.DrRobinKay.com. or call (310) 474-3020

Contact Dr. Kay at (310) 474-3020 or at
DrRobKay@verizon.net
 or
Ms. Warshow at (818) 703-1145 or at
swarshow@me.com

 

 

Strengthening the Fragile Ego with ISTDP

Susan Warren Warshow, LCSW, and Thomas Brod. MD

Nov. 13, 2010, 1:00-4:30P.M.

New Center for Psychoanlysis

2014 Sawtelle Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90025

Register at: http://www.c-p.org/eduevent.asp?id=160&the_type=Course

 

See bottom of page for detailed description of Susan's topic, From Distancing Defenses to Emotional Closeness: Traversing the Gap*

5th International 
Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association (IEDTA) Conference

SHORT TERM DYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR 
TREATMENT-RESISTANT PATIENTS:

FROM FAILURE AND DESPAIR TO HEALTH AND HOPE

JULY 15th-18th, 2010 
University of British Columbia 
Vancouver , BC , Canada

 

Susan Warren Warshow is a highly skilled therapist and an excellent teacher. With patient and student alike, she deftly and precisely identifies and targets key factors as the first step in swiftly, adroitly, and compassionately resolving critical issues. If you are interested in improving your personal and professional work, take Susan's seminar.

 Bruce W. Spring, MD
Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
University of Southern California School of Medicine
Training Group Participant

Great course! Her clear demonstration of how to identify, track and turn rigid defenses into enemies of the patient, shown through videotapes of her own sessions is invaluable. I was impressed with her skill both at teaching and applying this technique in such a positive and respectful way.

 Jean Ball, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, California Graduate Institute> Adjunct Professor, California State University at Northridge
Training Group Participant

CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS

 Woodland Hills Country Club
Sunday, October 14, 2007

 Experiential Dynamic Therapy:

A Powerful Emotion and Somatic-Focused,
Dynamic, Attachment Centered Therapy

A Videotape Presentation

with Susan Warren Warshow, LCSW, MFT

Therapists often question how to achieve lasting change with patients with entrenched character pathology. We will discuss videotaped excerpts from the treatment of a patient who presented with chronic depression, compulsive sexual behavior and workaholism.  She was a victim of fraternal molestation and extreme family trauma. To establish an emotionally intimate relationship with the therapist involved great risk for this patient. It also led and to a transformed way of being with herself and significant others. 

“You were absolutely amazing. I love your work, and the video demonstration. I learned so much from it.”
 

Anita Avedian, Vice-President of Programs,

California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists

 

It was so, so wonderful. The word that was running through my mind yesterday when I left, it’s just so user-friendly. It was great. I think you are so in your element. I think you’re a natural teacher of this stuff and it is so apparent to me how well you have integrated this style of working. It’s just really inspiring. I don’t have any constructive criticism at all. It’s only positive, Susan, what can I tell you? I’m just loving it and I can’t wait to come next week!

Jill Klepetar, LCSW
Training Group Participant

“I first saw Susan Warshow's work in Amsterdam in 2002 and was blown away.  Her work isn't just good.  It's beautiful!  She has such a warm, related, and kind way of helping patients turn against their defenses and resistances.  I regard this one as a must see presentation.”

Jon Frederickson, MSW, Faculty and Co-Chair, ISTDP Training Program

  Washington School of Psychiatry

ISTDP Training Program presents:

Penetrating Defenses to

Overcome Character Disturbances

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Susan Warshow, MSW

In this presentation Susan Warshow will show how she helps patients mobilize the will to overcome their defenses, face feelings, and develop compassion for the rejected parts of themselves.  Videotaped vignettes will illustrate the process that helps patients develop affect tolerance, undo irrational shame and guilt, and experience new levels of freedom.  By discouraging the punitive and encouraging the life-enhancing parts of the self, she helps patients experience emotional closeness, the ultimate goal, so the patient need no longer feel alone with forbidden feelings.

 

I thought the training was so clear and so good. You have this very clear way of analyzing and being very humble. I can’t think of anything you could have improved upon. I learned a lot in just one meeting. This is amazing work and I’m so excited about it. You made it so comfortable for me, the least experienced person in the group.

Debra King, M.A.
Training Group Participant

 

 

 

The 4th International IEDTA Conference

2007 August 24, 25, 26

Lakeside Lecture Theatres

University of Aarhus , Denmark

Learn more

Download Registration Form

 


Resolving Trauma through Depth Emotional Processing
An Accelerated Dynamic Approach

The National Association of Social Workers
2007 Annual Conference
Saturday, May 5, 2007
1:30 – 4:30 P.M.
San Francisco Airport Marriott, Burlingame


Resolving Trauma through Depth Emotional Processing
An Accelerated Dynamic Approach

San Gabriel Valley Psychological Association Friday, March 2, 2007 12:00 - 1:30 P.M.
University Club
175 N. Oakland, Pasadena, California


Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006 | Pasadena, California

Saturday, Nov. 11, 2006 | Westwood, California

Click here for Brochure information

  • Compassionate defense interruption

  • Tools to effectively reach core affect

  • Tracking emotions and their somatic manifestations

  • Building ego-adaptive capacity, i.e. tolerance for affect

  • Activating an intrapsychic focus and therapeutic alliance

  • How to tailor interventions for a spectrum of psychopathology

  • Healing through the therapeutic relationship

  • Countertransference and training issues

 

Experiential Dynamic Therapy: Making It User-Friendly

Preserving essential principles with flexibility and
authentic use of self
at the

Third International Congress  of the

International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association


Freeing the Self:

Working with Core Emotions

in Dynamic Therapy

UCLA, September 9, 2005, 8:00-9:45p.m.

Susan Warren Warshow will explore ways to modify, personalize, and integrate techniques of defense interruption to access deep affect and resolve trauma. To effectively apply EDT, it must be adapted to ones own personal style, personality and orientation.


The presenter will share her own journey in this process.

Videotape presentation.


For more information click here


Presenter - International Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy Conference sponsored by the Dutch Association for Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (VKDP), Amsterdam in September, 2002.


 

Presented lecture series on personality disorders to several medical staffs at hospitals in the Southern California area. She has guest lectured at California State University Northridge, California Graduate Institute and California School of Professional Psychology.


 

 

From Distancing Defenses to Emotional  Closeness:

    Traversing the Gap

  By Susan Warshow, MSW


If the patient is to be known, a requisite if therapy is to succeed, the distancing defenses must be bravely relinquished. As therapists, we invite the patient to do the counterintuitive: move towards painful feeling and, in the process, towards us. By doing so, the unrecognized and unfelt parts of the self that have been frozen by trauma can begin to heal and intimacy becomes possible.

 

Central to the dynamic relational process that replaces self-hatred with self-value, shame with openness, and fear with courage is the transmission of compassion from therapist to patient. Compassion for self is the engine that makes deep, transformative work possible. This force is inherent in humans yet often is deactivated and dormant as a result of relational trauma. Therapists who sincerely care about their patients and expend much effort to help them often become frustrated when the patient is not invested in the partnership.


Mobilizing the will of the patient to care for the self is one of the great challenges in psychotherapy. Success rests on two sets of shoulders! How can we heighten the possibility that the patient will allow their therapist’s caring to become internalized so that ever-greater levels of vulnerability can be accessed?

 


Transmission of Compassion from Therapist to Patient

The punitive parts of the self, i.e. the superego-driven defenses, will attempt to block this process and must be brought to awareness if the patient is to build capacity and have the choice to overcome them. We will consider the therapist’s language, facial expressions, tone of voice, steadfastness in the process and other factors that can increase the likelihood of a successful alliance.

 “Your face comes to mind often when I am in one of my moods where I’m being unkind to myself and a voice comes up that says, ‘Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to this magnificent woman.’ I see your eyes and I see the compassion that comes from them and I ‘remember’ to be present and real in my gentleness, to stop the self-hatred and stop the sabotaging personality from making me miserable.”

 Utilizing the Patient’s Inherent Motivation to Maximum Advantage.

What does the patient want on the deepest level? How does the therapist heighten awareness of this potent, expansive force and help the patient to use it as leverage against the defenses? Remembering to remember the patient’s own words is one clue!

The Warrior Therapist

In reality, therapy requires a warrior team involving two courageous partners. Therapist and patient are both up against a perpetrator that resides to varying degrees in each of them. Avoidance of feeling and diminishment of the self are reinforced by widespread, powerful familial and societal norms. Several issues will be considered:

 1. Surviving the learning phase while addressing formidable defenses; mistakes and misalliances.

2. Withstanding the tide of complex feeling and working with therapist anxiety.

3. Counteracting counter-transference based despair and doubt.

4. Sustaining tenacity and focus within the therapeutic alliance.

© 2011 Susan Warren Warshow. All rights reserved.