Events and Seminars

The theme of the conference is Working Alliance in ISTDP and helping patients overcome their personality disorders. The workshop information is as follows:

'No psychotherapy method or array of techniques is effective in the absence of a working alliance with the patient. The specific ways in which a working alliance will be established and maintained are of course dependent on the particular psychotherapy school, its particular theoretical view on the patient's problems, its particular emphasis on certain aspects of the patient's problems, its particular view on the specific curative elements and its particular methods and techniques to "tackle" and solve the patient's problems.

With regard to the ISTDP concept of the working alliance and the patient's part in it, Davanloo (1990) distinguishes a conscious and an unconscious component. The conscious component consists of the patient's conscious will to get well, to cooperate with the therapist, to face the truth, no matter how painful, to drop his defences, to face disturbing feelings. The unconscious component consists basically of the repressed impulses and feelings which are pressing for expression and are therefore on the patient's side.

As most of our patients come to the initial interview with high superego pathology, they will, to a certain degree, defeat any intimate relationship. Thus it is mainly up to the therapist, who is supposed to have the necessary relational and technical skills, to establish a working alliance with the patient.

During the workshop we will focus upon different aspects of establishing a working alliance with different kinds of patients, the tasks of the therapist and frequently made mistakes of the therapist. Theory will be elaborated upon via video vignettes and via role play. Participants will be encouraged to play their patients with whom they struggled to establish a conscious / unconscious working alliance.

The workshop will be led by Josette ten have-de Labije, Kees Cornelissen and assisted by Ross Crowther-Green and Mark Stein.'

For enquiries and/or to request registration/booking form please contact Dr Mark J Stein or Dr Angela Cooper on mark.stein@swyt.nhs.uk and angela.cooper@swyt.nhs.uk