ABSTRACT Analysis of single cases represents an essential strategy for developing our understanding of paradoxical outcome and illusory mental health. Based on findings from both practice-based and randomized controlled outcome studies, 35-40% of clients fail to improve over the course of psychotherapy.We examined the prevalence of failure cases in the Single Case Archive, a database that includes

Shift in representation and symbolisation of affective experience: A paradoxical outcome in therapyAbstract: Defining outcome represents a key challenge for psychotherapy theory, research and practice.The present paper uses a case study of a client with anorexia nervosa to contribute to thedevelopment of conceptual understanding of the nature of paradoxical outcome. In this case,different sources of

ABSTRACT Client self-report symptom measures are widely used in counselling and psychotherapy research and practice to track client progress and evaluate outcome. A growing body of evidence indicates differences between self-report assessments and information collected through other sources. This paper considers a range of theoretical and empirical perspectives on this issue, including the concept

(2021). Secrets and lies in psychotherapy. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT The concept of ‘paradoxical outcome’ refers to instances of differences in evaluation of the outcome of psychotherapy when taken from different sources and/or by different modes of evaluation. Paradoxical outcome has become a central issue in psychotherapy practice and research because of its prevalence as well as its implications for the aims and process of therapy. The concept of paradoxical

(2021). Joint decision-making in mental health: An interactional approach. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling. Ahead of Print.

(2021). The pursuit of objectivity in psychology. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT The present special issue includes single and multiple case studies which report on the phenomenon of ‘paradoxical’ outcomes in psychotherapy, operationalized as discordant outcome assessments within the same case. In an attempt to find ground for my published response, I endeavored to juxtaposition the cases from the different studies, and by doing that gain an overview of the contributions

ABSTRACT In the present paper we examine four cases in which the assumption that “good outcome” necessarily means “good therapy” did not hold. Cases were selected that reported good pre-post outcome (i.e., clinically reliable decrease in symptom severity) but a negative (disappointing) therapy experience, drawn from a randomized controlled trial (the Ghent Psychotherapy Study) and a naturalistic outcome

ABSTRACT Intensive studies of single cases represent a valuable means for developing and refining practice-relevant theory in the field of counselling and psychotherapy. A significant discrepancy between different sources of information about symptom severity was observed in a case of a client recovering from the experience of growing up with an abusive alcoholic parent. The process of change within

(2021). Psychotherapists were never going to save the world - but could they do more? A case for macro and micro psychotherapy. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling: Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 1-7.

ABSTRACT As research has shown a consistent link between the alliance and the therapeutic success, an alliance-focused supervision was designed to help novice therapists improve their relational and collaborative abilities. Fifteen young therapists participated in the alliance-focused supervision and 15 did not. Therapists’ and clients’ results at the Working Alliance Inventory showed that the supervision

ABSTRACT Despite a plethora of texts on the ‘wounded healer’, little systematic research has been conducted on unpacking the implications and embedded assumptions of this concept. This paper takes the ‘wounded healer’ into the research arena by approaching it reflexively as an analytic tool to explore therapists’ personal and professional development. Six therapeutic practitioners who identified with

ABSTRACT This paper looks afresh at the Blair family case study in R. D. Laing and Aaron Esterson’s Sanity, Madness and the Family; primarily, through adaptation of an earlier-elaborated concept of the author’s, that of ‘enverneity’, and by bringing it specifically to bear on temporality and relation to time. This article thus sets out a theory of ‘enverneity’, which is used to uncover socio-psychical

ABSTRACT This paper explores different factors that have been found to have a detrimental impact on the mental health of young adults today. The author demonstrates how environmental factors negatively impact internal processes, such as anxiety and low self-esteem. It looks at the various external factors that have led to a significant rise in perfectionism among the age group, such as a tougher social

(2021). The Routledge international handbook of global therapeutic cultures. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling: Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 99-112.

(2021). Therapy as discourse: Practice and research (the language of mental health series) European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling: Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 108-112.

(2020). Toxic young adulthood: Therapy and therapeutic ethos. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling: Vol. 22, Toxic Young Adulthood: Therapy and Therapeutic Ethos, pp. 165-172.

ABSTRACT Psychotherapy supervision research, while reflecting empirical advances across the decades, also reflects unfulfilled promise. We subsequently consider why that is so, examining some of the roadblocks that seemingly have prevented supervision research from moving most fruitfully forward. It is our contention that rich seeds of supervision research advancement have long been available, cast

(2021). Symbolic universes in time of (Post)crisis. The future of European societies. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling: Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 102-106.

(2021). Ghosts in the human psyche; the story of an ‘Armenian Moslem’. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling: Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 106-108.

It is a great honour and privilege to be asked to review this book edited by Lewis Aron, Sue Grand and Joyce Slochower, especially as this is the second of the two volumes (the first volume is De-I...

The scope of this work is hugely ambitious. In pursuit of an understanding of madness, the author has undertaken the challenge of delineating and engaging with the interfaces of psychoanalysis, psy...

Working with older adolescents and young adults is somewhat disputed territory. Those with qualifications in work with adults can easily adapt to working with this age-group, and historically this ...

The key issue of the papers I reviewed seems to lie in the interconnection between therapeutic and social ethos. In fact today malaise is tied to a particular mind-set of our contemporary culture w...

After an account of working as a psychotherapist, some affinities, similarities and intersections between Zhuangzi, Nietzsche and Heidegger and some versions of psychoanalysis are identified. These...

This engaging symposium opens up the question of therapeutic work with young adults in a consistently engrossing way that is refreshingly unpredictable and richly diverse. Particularly important is...

This article presents an imaginary phenomenology of working with a young adult in psychotherapy. It is presented in two parts: Part 1 is a retrospective of meaning, and Part 2 is the case itself. T...

One source of the mental health challenges facing contemporary people, especially younger people, is the increasing commodification of experience: phases of life, human encounters and so on, which ...

(2020). Fanon, education, action: Child as method. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling: Vol. 22, Toxic Young Adulthood: Therapy and Therapeutic Ethos, pp. 291-294.

When families are in conflict, high levels of emotional activity such as anger, fear, loss and grief in the adults involved can affect children and young people in the family, particularly as a res...

(2020). Consciousness, Language, and Self. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling: Vol. 22, No. 1-2, pp. 157-159.

ABSTRACT This article outlines differences between phenomenology and method, with implications for psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic research. Drawing on a study exploring how mental health nurses are therapeutic, we focus on how taking experience seriously is encouraged through being phenomenological. We look at how research method and theory – and fixed beliefs or ideas – tend to constrict language

ABSTRACT This article presents the findings of a heuristic investigation of factors that may hinder therapeutic work with people who have been sexually abused. The aim of the researchers was to conduct a study by exploring therapists’ lived experience of what may get in the way of working with sexual abuse. For the purpose 8 therapists were interviewed and the collected data was analysed using Heuristic

ABSTRACT The unexpected invention of a game with my grandchildren provided a new way of thinking about the nature of such unpredictable moments in therapy. The experience brought together a number of ideas, considered through the view of language taken by Merleau-Ponty where the chaotic primitive layers that pervade language are seen as having primacy over the rules of linguistics such as those set

ABSTRACT ‘Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.’ E.B. White (1999., p. 303). How we understand humour in psychotherapy is a challenge to explore, due to the ways in which we obtain knowledge, and risk a dissection that could cause the death of the phenomena itself. The following work attempts to

ABSTRACT This paper suggests that to approach another person confident that we are in possession of ‘universally applicable’ concepts and ideas is to begin in the wrong place both with that person and our ideas. It is to begin as someone who is well armed, well trained and perhaps too focused on succeeding by finding what she is looking for. Looking carefully at the particular, looking like a foreigner

ABSTRACT It has been argued that qualitative research can be valuable in providing a forum for the voices of those who may usually be excluded from academic discourse and that it is therefore well suited to exploring individuals’ experiences of illness. This article is informed by the authors’ research into how people diagnosed with ‘schizophrenia’ experience their personal therapy. It focuses upon

Ian Parker is the author and co-author of over 20 books and editor of a further 15 on critical psychology, psychoanalysis and discourse. With the publication of one or two books a year since 1989 t...

I recently came across this book on countertransference that seems to open a conversation among therapists of any theoretical school. Traditionally transference-countertransference notions are infu...

ABSTRACT A refreshing ambivalence at the heart of psychoanalysis makes it straddle both modernist and poststructuralist narratives, shielding it from its penchant for universalism. Similarly, when phenomenological and heuristic styles of research are held lightly and critically, and no longer constricted by subjectivism and a philosophy of consciousness, they can be more effective in navigating the

Has a crisis point been reached in what is currently taken as psychotherapeutic knowledge? There are, for example, an ever-increasing number of continuous professional development (CPD) courses off...

ABSTRACT This paper is a phenomenological and psychoanalytical response to a set of papers. As a psychoanalyst, philosopher, and intellectual historian, I am interested in ‘intention’ in the phenomenological sense, that is, how someone both reaches out to and shapes their world. How does our thinking in this phenomenological way affect our doing of empirical research? How does it affect our psychoanalytical

ABSTRACT In this article, as a phenomenological psychologist, researcher, and professor I offer reflections on the six articles that make up this special edition of the Journal. I respond to each in some detail, addressing issues around the challenges of using phenomenological methods, understanding them adequately, and the challenge of finding ways of studying phenomena systematically while also remaining

‘Last Saturday night I thought I would try “aggressive African”, at least that’s what he calls it on the website. It wasn’t actually that aggressive and he was alright really; but he was only a student.’ This client, who men seem to find attractive, and who considers she is good at sex texting and doing it ‘as on the porn sites’ longs to be able to marry sex and intimacy. In various ways, we do seem

ABSTRACT Bettelheim’s ‘The Uses of Enchantment’ describes the way in which inner conflicts are processed by children in the symbolism and fantasy of fairy tales. In this paper, the author suggests that romance may be used as an adult form of fairy story and possess the same function, which is to allow prohibited desires and past trauma to be processed. Romance can be a fantasy in which essential images

ABSTRACT This paper questions the idea that within families love should always be unconditional and raises the issue of family estrangement in the context of psychotherapy. It will look at whether there has been a generational shift towards individualism and consider how this affects the notion of love. Does the author respond to her clients from a belief that love should be unconditional or from a

ABSTRACT This paper presents a response to the six papers comprising this special issue on Love, Sex and Psychotherapy in a Postromantic Era. The theme of temporality is explored in reading the papers: specifically, time in terms of self-other development and the capacity to relate to others as a separate subjectivity, the social and cultural context in which we are situated, and temporality in psychotherapy

ABSTRACT Post-romanticism can be viewed as an historical construct that can be applied to singular experiences as well as broad understandings of change in couple and family relationships. This commentary focuses on the former approach, building on the six papers in this special issue. Four interconnected themes are explored: the relationship between falling in love and partner choice; the pull of

ABSTRACT This paper about the desire to keep even ourselves under control and in order, does not set out to show that the author, having himself under control and in order, is able to make masterful links between psychoanalytic theory and practice. It is a paper that takes up and illustrates with client work Socrates’ argument in Plato’s dialogue, Phaedrus, that although technical mastery and self-control

ABSTRACT This paper begins with an illustration from the HBO series ‘In Treatment’ and alludes to the gender bias in the portrayal of male and female analysts’ erotic countertransference on screen. The author includes several clinical vignettes from her clinical practice, taking a critical stance on the use of the oedipal myth as a concept or tool in analytic treatment. It is suggested that we need

ABSTRACT This paper will explore what is meant by polyamory, why it is presenting more frequently in recent years in the media, on online forums and in therapy rooms, and what might be considered the benefits and drawbacks of this way of relating. Challenges for the therapist working with polyamorous clients will be explored and a composite clinical case example will be given as will an example from

Learning Along the Way: Further Reflections on Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy provides an overview of Patrick Casement’s outstanding contribution to the development of psychotherapeutic technique...

ABSTRACT This paper presents a phenomenology of love, indicating some complexities in working with the lover in psychotherapy and counselling, while taking into account Lacanian ideas about love. Experience and Lacan’s ideas seem to intersect, the latter perhaps announcing a harsh ‘truth’ from which experience flinches. Reference to a small dog illustrates to an extent the real but illusory cause of

ABSTRACT Taking a psychodynamic perspective, the present exploratory study proposes an integrated approach to explore the forced migratory experience, focusing simultaneously on mental health risk and protective factors and on the quality of the subjective experience of migration. We aimed to evaluate trauma and protective factors and to explore in-depth representations and meanings asylum seekers

Those working in health services are often under exceptional pressure clinically as well as organisationally. This editorial explores different interventions that might be made to make potentially stressful work more productive for the person working, those around them as well as their patients. Isabel Menzies Lyth (1988) in her classic study ‘Containing anxiety in organisations’ found that as a defence

ABSTRACT The issue of social justice and how it unfolds in the lives of persons seeking counselling has been steadily gaining attention in recent times. This development marks a departure from an individualistic perspective that construes problems as functions of personal deficits, thereby overlooking the many social inequities that contribute to the challenges people face. The turn towards social

motivation for amoral and demonic behaviour cannot be satisfactorily explained by notions of rational choice, its presentation of competing theoretical explanations for man’s inhumanity serves mainly to confirm the complexity of such behaviour and the ongoing uncertainty about its origins and drivers. That I was left with a wish to read again the works of many of the theorists cited by Briant can only

“It has been altered within meThe rhythm of the world”Georgios VizyinosThe latest book of Giuseppe Civitarese which has the title ‘Sublime Subjects: Aesthetic Experience and Intersubjectivity in Ps...

ABSTRACT The field of Counselling as a profession and that of Counselling Psychology is a relatively new and developing discipline in Greece. As in other European countries, it is only in recent years that this postgraduate training started to be delivered by a state/national University Institution in Greece. The present study focused on attempting to capture the qualitative experience of the first