Presenters: |
Anna Ornstein, MD
|
Self Psychology Page | 20th Conference Program
Summary
This is the third of a series of workshops that has as its aim to find evocative ways to enhance oral and written clinical reports in such a way that their most important aspect, namely, their emotional content, does not get lost. The more case reports become condensed, the more they tend to become "soaked" with theory which makes them rather useless to the reader. On the other hand, a detailed account of the dialogue does not seem to be helpful either.
We are encouraging participants to bring to these exercises their own write-ups that have been "shaped" into emotionally evocative language.
The benefits of these joint exercises occur on several levels:
1. Writing up clinical material with special emphasis on the affective experiences of the two participants, enhances our empathic capacities as these forms of writing demand that we encompass our patients' complex mental states and that we find the most evocative and imaginative language to convey these to others.
2. Writing in this manner helps organize the therapist's own subjectivity as the activity of writing itself acts as an "organizer" for the therapist. This is particularly helpful in cases where potentially disruptive countertransference affects can threaten the therapeutic process.