Dreams, Symptoms, and Fantasies: Access to the Unconscious in the Psychotherapy of Adolescents with Eating Disorders

Terlato, Valentina

doi:10.1177/036215370803800209

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Beyond specific contract goals, the therapist’s task is to create, together with the patient, an intersubjective vital space in which it may be possible to play with what is not there but potentially could be, in which to simulate what triggers the vitality and creativity of both actors even if it will not happen in reality. The therapist must play the crucial role of auxiliary dreamer , to use Cornell’s (2005) words, a guarantor of a freedom that a patient at times cannot even imagine (Terlato, 2008).…”

Section: The Limits Of Contractingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secret Gardens and Dusty Roads

Terlato¹

2017

Transactional Analysis Journal

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The author examines the tensions present in every psychotherapy between the contract, on the one hand, and the illusions of the patient and therapist, on the other. She considers these as two of the various polarities through which the psychotherapeutic process develops with its intrinsic ambiguities. The role Berne assigned to illusion and disillusionment in life and in every psychotherapeutic process is compared with the various functions of illusion discussed by Winnicott and psychoanalysts of the British School. Considering the contract and illusions in a dialectic relationship, the author reflects on the clinical implications of the transactional analysis theory of contracts; discusses recent transactional analytic viewpoints, mainly from a relational perspective, that widen the clinical prospects of psychological contracts; and considers the possible implicit and dynamic influences of these developments. She also examines some specific illusions of patients and therapists and considers their implicit links with clinical models common to various psychotherapeutic theories.

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Section: The Limits Of Contractingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secret Gardens and Dusty Roads

Terlato¹

2017

Transactional Analysis Journal

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“…In agreement with Gabbard (1994), I think that some fantasies are better kept unspoken because the therapist’s premature self-disclosure toward the patient, especially in the realm of eroticism and sexuality, can escape the therapist’s control and trigger games or script enactments on both sides. I think it is essential that we, as therapists, remain mentally alive in our ability to think and feel, able to accept in our mind what a patient wants to tell us as well as all the fantasies, representations, and needs that he or she cannot yet acknowledge, even to himself or herself (Cornell, 2005; Terlato, 2008).…”

Section: Clinical Vignettementioning

confidence: 99%

Love, Seduction, and Power in the Psychotherapeutic Relationship

Terlato¹

2013

Transactional Analysis Journal

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With the help of the most recent contributions from the psychoanalytic literature, mainly from a constructivistic and relational purview, the author analyzes some ambiguous dimensions of the therapeutic relationship related to seduction, love, and power. It is assumed that the seductive power embedded in the psychotherapeutic experience is related to the paradoxical character of the relationship between patient and therapist that is, at the same time, asymmetrical and mutual. The role played by gender differences in the expression of love and seduction between patient and therapist is also discussed. A final reflection is dedicated to the potential and space that transactional analysis theory, from its origins to date, provides to these obscure and elusive dimensions of the therapeutic relationship.

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Nourish: A Framework for Nourishing Eating-Disordered Clients Using a Structural and Relational Methodology

Atkinson

2023

Transactional Analysis Journal

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Dreams, Symptoms, and Fantasies: Access to the Unconscious in the Psychotherapy of Adolescents with Eating Disorders

Cited by 3 publications

References 7 publications

Secret Gardens and Dusty Roads

Secret Gardens and Dusty Roads

Love, Seduction, and Power in the Psychotherapeutic Relationship

Nourish: A Framework for Nourishing Eating-Disordered Clients Using a Structural and Relational Methodology

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