Herbert M. Potash

Size factors on the Bender-Gestalt test and their relation to trait anxiety and situationally induced anxiety

Hutts hypothesis that anxiety is reflected by absolute size deviations on reproduced Bender-Gestalt figures was investigated by administering the test to 40 subjects (half under anxiety-arousing and half under non-anxiety-arousing conditions). Measures of trait anxiety and defensive style were found to be intercorrelated significantly and to interact significantly with anxiety condition. Under the non-anxiety-arousing condition repressers (low trait anxious subjects) had fewer size distortions than sensitizers (high trait anxious subjects). However, situationally induced anxiety reversed this effect, whereby sensitizers had greater size distortions than repressers. Situationally induced anxiety heightened the performance of sensitizers, while it interfered with the test protocols of repressers by producing greater size deviations on the Bender-Gestalt.

The battle within the self, 1: An existential framework for understanding personality disorders

A new phenomenologically based model for understanding personality disorders is presented. This model draws upon the existential concepts of “Dasein” and “pitch” to explain how individuals with personality disorders have extremely constricted and rigid experiences of the world. When they were children, these individuals internalized and retained hypercritical, sadistic parental messages. Such covert parental voices are misidentified as rational evaluations by these patients who are deficient in their capacity to engage in rational self-evaluation. When these individuals are encouraged to observe and report upon the internalized self-attacks, their observing ego is strengthened and an effective groundwork is set for ultimate changes in behavior.

Apprenticeship clinical training in academia.

The value of a pluralistic educational philosophy for the training of clinical psychologists is evaluated. A more intensive faculty-student relationship is proposed whereby students have frequent contact with professors over several courses. When a faculty member teaches several courses to graduate students and provides a process and experiential focus in these classes, the process increases the clinical skills of students and produces high levels of satisfaction. Strategies for introducing process learning in the classroom are outlined, including personal reaction papers, use of student projective protocols, an experiential group psychotherapy course, and team-taught seminars that model the use of free associative thinking.

The battle within the self, II: An existential approach to psychotherapy with personality disorders

Individuals who suffer from personality disorders are dominated by an internalized self-attacking mechanism which is labeled here as “the enemy.” This force is the incorporated voice of the parent incessantly operating and producing the psychological pain which very much characterizes the patients existence. By anthropomorphizing this destructive aspect of the personality structure, the therapist is better able to become an ally with the healthy parts of the patient against this critical internal enemy. As patients more fully comprehend the wide extent of the ongoing battle within the self, they begin to develop the necessary resources to effect significant behavioral changes.

Productive Psychotherapy With the Interminable Patient

Recognition of the positive contributions of sustained psychotherapy with individuals suffering from personality disorders is central to the understanding of the interminable patient. Personal growth can occur in such individuals when therapists reduce their treatment objectives to manageable dimensions. Case illustrations of these points are offered.