Jesse D. Geller

Images of the Psychotherapist: A Theoretical and Methodological Perspective

This paper presents a theoretical and methodological approach to studying the ways in which psychotherapy patients create and interpret mental representations of their therapists and the psychotherapeutic process both during therapy and after termination. A network of measures, The Therapist Representation Inventory, was developed to specify the interrelationships between the stylistic, functional and formal properties of such symbolic evocations across different states of consciousness and in different situations. It includes a method of examining the ability to formulate a concept of the psychotherapist and guidelines for interpreting both the thematic content and conceptual level of that object representation. The second scale measures the ability to specify the formal properties of therapist representations, as distinct from their particular contents. The third instrument seeks to identify the functions which therapist “introjects” serve for a given individual. Normative data, based upon a sample of 206 psychotherapists who themselves have been patients in psychotherapy and/or psychoanalysis indicate that the vividness of the representation and the use of the representation for the purpose of continuing the therapeutic dialogue are significantly correlated with self-perceived improvement.

The Body, Expressive Movement, and Physical Contact in Psychotherapy

An overview of the current “therapeutic marketplace” (Frank, 1972) reveals the proliferation, and increasing popularity, of a wide range of body- or movement-oriented therapies, e.g., orgone therapy (Reich, 1949), bioenergetic analysis (Lowen, 1967), postural-relearning (Feldenkrais, 1949), Rolf structural integration (Rolf, 1963), psychomotortraining (Pesso, 1969), the Alexander technique (Alexander, 1974), and the various forms of dance-movement therapy (e.g., Chace, 1953; Schoop, 1971; Siegel, 1973; Bartenieff, 1972), etc. These approaches do not share a common vocabulary, a standardized repertoire of techniques, nor are they unified by a comprehensive theory of psychopathology and behavior change. They evolved to meet the needs of different types of patient populations. They are practiced in a wide variety of institutional contexts and their practitioners come from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Feldenkrais was originally a physicist, Rolf a biochemist, Alexander an actor. The pioneers in the scientific rediscovery of the “art” of movement as a mode of therapy were dancers.

Effects of Therapists’ Clinical Experience and Personal Boundaries on Termination of Psychotherapy

The present study was designed to investigate empirically responses of therapists to the process of terminating dyadic psychotherapy and to examine some personality correlates of these responses. A questionnaire was constructed to tap both managerial and affective responses to termination; this inventory, along with a measure of personal boundary management, was completed by 71 therapists-in-training and 34 experienced clinicians. Findings, supporting hypothesized interactions, indicated that characteristic ways of regulating personal boundaries significantly affected responses to termination only for the group of student therapists. More specifically, the data revealed that personal needs for intimacy and social isolation influenced the ways in which these therapists-in-training handled psychotherapy endings. Implications for psychotherapy supervision, in terms of the sociopsychological concept of role, were discussed.

Adult development and the transformative powers of psychotherapy.

This article explores the ways in which receiving, providing, and teaching others to do psychotherapy have influenced my adult development. In my 70s, I arrived at the conviction that at every stage of adulthood, practicing psychotherapy has had a direct and causal influence on my efforts to fill my personal life with meaning, virtue, and maturity. The first section of this article focuses on the ways in which learning to be a particular kind of psychoanalytic therapist facilitated my transition into early adulthood. The middle sections describe how I have used the professional practice of psychotherapy to integrate or dissolve the boundaries between work and play, and science and art, in the everyday conduct of my life. My psychobiographical analysis concludes with some reflections on a professional failure and the compensations of being an aging therapist.

Introduction: The transformative powers of aesthetic experiences in psychotherapy

This issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session contains seven essays that give expression to three basic convictions. The first is that therapists who are consistently able to help their patients make constructive changes in their lives practice psychotherapy creatively, whether or not they conceive of therapy as an applied science or as an art form. The second is that cultivating an aesthetic perspective on the communicative exchanges that take place in therapy can enhance a therapists capacity to serve creatively as an agent of change. The third is that therapists can make better choices on behalf of their patients if they take inspiration from what artists have to teach us about the aesthetic domain of existence.

The Therapist Representation Inventory: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

This report describes an approach to studying the ways in which psychotherapy patients create and interpret “mental representations” of their psychotherapists and the psychotherapeutic process both during therapy and after termination. We will briefly present our concepts, method and some normative data regarding the complex processes which recreate within self-experience qualities and functions originally experienced in our relationships with external others. Our framework embraces the data and concepts of contemporary development psychology and the contributions of the object-relations branch of psychoanalytic theory.