0000000001043116
AUTHOR
Kirsti-liisa Kuusinen
Progress through the Early Stages of Assimilation in Play Therapy with a Traumatized Six-Year-Old Girl
We applied the assimilation of problematic experiences sequence (APES) to a six-year-old girl’s processing of traumatic experiences involving violence and death in play therapy. We analyzed the post-session notes from the first 34 sessions of a much longer treatment, during which the girl repeatedly enacted a drama we called the cottage play, involving characters assumed by the child and characters assigned to the therapist. We distinguished four phases based on changes in play themes. In phase 1, the girl expressed her need for safety in response to an overwhelming internal threat (APES stage 0, warded off/dissociated). In phase 2, she worked to escape and avoid the threat, referenced in t…
Changes in the sense of agency: Implications for the psychotherapy of bulimia nervosa- A case study.
A sense of agency is a transtheoretical concept that increases our understanding of important processes in psychotherapy. Agency can be described in terms of how strongly the person believes that she can have an impact on her problematic experiences and behaviors. In this case study, a patient's sense of agency in relation to symptoms of bulimia nervosa was assessed during 3 years of psychotherapy. Five distinct phases of agency in relation to eating disorder symptoms were identified: A false sense of agency or no agency at all, a weak sense of agency, a nascent sense of agency, a wavering sense of agency, and a strong sense of agency. A better understanding of patient agency can facilitate…
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…