0000000000607027
AUTHOR
Henna Penttinen
Socially phobic clients' self-descriptions, treatment progress and reflexivity in short-term cognitive-constructivist group psychotherapy
The aim of the research was to get information about different kinds of clients with social phobia and their therapeutic progress in cognitive-constructivist group psychotherapy. The aim was also to offer relevant information to clinicians working with socially phobic clients on how they could help the progress of the successful therapeutic change process of socially phobic clients, especially in early phases of the therapy when clients are developing a reflexive stance toward their own problematic experiences. Study I supported the view that negative self-image is central to social phobia, but this ranged from total piteousness to relatively few negative feelings of insufficiency. Three su…
Self-descriptions of socially phobic persons in short-term group psychotherapy
This paper explores how socially phobic persons exhibit their self-images through self-descriptions expressed in a naturalistic group therapy context. The data, which is analysed qualitatively, consists of videotaped therapy sessions, transcribed verbatim, from two groups of individuals (n = 17, mainly women) attending short cognitive–constructive psychotherapy. Seven categories of self-descriptions are found. Three categories –‘self as miserable,’ ‘self as insufficient’ and ‘self as transparent’ – relate to experiential self-images. Four categories – ‘self as adjusting and pleasing others,’ ‘self as demanding toward self,’ ‘self as outsider, different, isolated’ and ‘self as hiding and con…
Assimilation, reflexivity, and therapist responsiveness in group psychotherapy for social phobia: A case study.
Objective: This case study examined reflexivity and the assimilation of problematic experiences, especially its progress within and between the Assimilation of Problematic Experiences Scale (APES) Stages 2–3, in group psychotherapy for social phobia. Method: The data consisted of all of one client's turns expressing the two voices of her main problematic experience in 12 sessions, and all replies by the therapist in direct connection to them. The client's utterances were rated on the APES. Results: A detailed analysis of 13 conversational passages revealed that progress in assimilation happened only when the client took a reflexive stance towards her inner experience or outer actions. There…