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Dr. Sanjay gupta: What Makes Therapy Work? what use is selfawareness if it fails to alleviate psychological distress? he says what you do with insight determines whether you are able to live a healthier life.
Dr. Sanjay gupta: What Makes Therapy Work? what use is selfawareness if it fails to alleviate psychological distress? he says what you do with insight determines whether you are able to live a healthier life.
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Dr. Sanjay gupta: What Makes Therapy Work? what use is selfawareness if it fails to alleviate psychological distress? he says what you do with insight determines whether you are able to live a healthier life.
Drepturi de autor:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Formate disponibile
Descărcați ca PDF, TXT sau citiți online pe Scribd
! Earlier this year I stumbled across a thoughtful article
appearing in The New York Times written by a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College in Manhattan. Dr. Richard Friedman's piece entitled "When Self-Knowledge Is Only the Beginning" got me thinking: What makes therapy work?
! In the article Dr. Friedman discusses the case of a young
man in his 30s who came to him feeling sad and anxious due to a breakup with his girlfriend. Through therapy this man had traced his feelings of anxiety and sadness back to an earlier trauma of being separated from his mother at the age of 4. All of this sounds probable enough, however, what use is such self- awareness if it fails to alleviate this man's psychological distress? I'm reminded of what my own clients sometimes say after arriving at their own meaningful insights during therapy: "Well, that's great, but what do I do about it?
! I practice a form of psychotherapy derived from Freudian
psychoanalysis and work on helping my clients become self-aware and insightful about their internal lives. Such an approach to therapy is in keeping with the Socratic mantra that "The unexamined life is not worth living." However, as much as I would like to believe this, my clinical experience has also taught me that insight only gets you so far. It is what you do with that insight that really determines whether you are able to live a healthier and happier existence.
! Freud believed that the key to curing neuroses lay within
the unconscious. Through careful examination of his patients' unconscious processes, Freud believed he could relieve their suffering. From personal experience, however, I can tell you that such palliative effects rarely follow directly from insight, no matter how profound. We all need encouragement, if not guidance, in translating our own personal insights into concrete behavioral changes. This is where therapy becomes more of an art form than a hard science.
! Researchers such as the late Lester Luborsky, Ph.D. (2002)
have shown that when different types of therapies are compared to one another, there really isn't much difference in outcome. These researchers have focused instead on the common factor of the strength of the therapeutic alliance. This is in keeping with what I have seen in my own practice. It is the relationship
ⓒ Tyger Latham, Psy.D.
between patient and therapist and the insight derived there from that ultimately brings about true change.
About Dr. Tyger Latham
Dr. Tyger Latham is a clinical psychologist with a private practice in
Washington, DC. He frequently works with individuals struggling with issues surrounding trauma, sexuality, and gender. He also counsels couples and helps them address issues related to differing styles of communication, sexual problems, and navigating work and family. He maintains a weekly blog entitled “Therapy Matters,” where he enjoys reflecting on his work as a psychotherapist. You can visit his blog at www.psychologytoday.com/blog/therapy-matters or his website at www.DupontTherapy.com.