Depth psychologically founded psychotherapy--characteristic and intervention style
Heigl-Evers, A.; Heigl, F.
Zeitschrift für Psychosomatische Medizin und Psychoanalyse 28(2): 160-175
1982
ISSN/ISBN: 0340-5613 PMID: 7080696 Document Number: 183348
We consider the depth psychologically grounded psychotherapeutic principle as being distinct from the principle of the classical psychoanalysis, on the one hand, and from the interactional principle derived from ego-psychology and ego-pathology on the other. In our attempt to more closely define the depth psychologically grounded principle we started out from the definition of a psychotherapeutic approach named depth psychotherapy in the so-called psychotherapy guidelines and additionally from an attempt at distinguishing this type of psychotherapy psychoanalysis by Loch. While the definition in the psychotherapy guidelines is at once a localization and a centration and therefore also a specification, Loch in the comparison of depth psychologically grounded psychotherapy and psychoanalysis merely observes differences in quantity, but not in quality. In differentiating the definition of a psychotherapy based upon depth psychology, we oriented ourselves on the intersection metaphor of the origin of neuroses. According to this metaphor, a necrosis manifests itself at a point where, in a manner of speaking, the vertical axis of the life history and the horizontal axis of the actual situation of an individual cross. The crossing signifies that latent pathogeneity with its origin in the life history may, under specific interpersonal conditions which, for their part, are mostly subject to specific socioeconomic and sociocultural conditions or both (pathogenic field), lead to a clinical manifestation. Latent neurotic conflicts are actualized in this way. When an actualized conflict of this kind can be distinguished the following possibilities for focussing on a therapeutic technique offer themselves: 1. The specific triggering (interpersonal) situation (situation of temptation and refusal) for the symptoms in question. 2. The pathogenous social fields, in which the triggering situation arose. 3. The actual interpersonal relationship between patient and therapist. The objective of this psychotherapy in the sense of a modification of the "triangle of insight" (Menninger; Menninger and Holzmann) consists in affording the patient an insight into the triggering (interpersonal) situation, into its inherent pathogenous social field, into the actual interpersonal relationship between patient and therapist, and finally, into the connections existing between these components; in this manner a limited insight into basic internal conflicts can be reaches, and in addition to a diminishing of the symptoms a partial internal reorganization is attempted. The means of reaching this objective present themselves, on the one hand, in the setting, the therapeutic arrangement (neutrality and abstinence of the therapist, handling of the frequency and duration of the individual meetings, and, should the occasion arise, occasional inclusion of significant others), and on the other, in certain types of therapeutic interventions...