Imagery and Altered States in the Treatment of Child Abuse Survivors: A Commentary on Therapist Influence

Abstract

Guided imagery, role-play, dramatic enactment, and similar techniques are widely used by psychotherapists in the treatment of child abuse survivors. These methods invite clients to enter an altered state in which they relax critical judgment and attend closely to internally generated sensory experience. Recently some researchers have criticized these interventions on the grounds that they may create false memories. This article surveys the variety of therapeutic goals served by altered state methods and justifies their use in the framework of an information-processing model of trauma and dissociation. The author places the controversy in the context of a larger issue-the misuse of therapist suggestion-and argues that respect for a client's experience, rather than specific procedures, ensures safety in the psychotherapy relationship.Peter M. Thomas, a Clinical Psychologist in private practice and a former faculty member of the University of Washington and Antioch University, has worked extensively with abuse victims and with offenders. He formulated a theoretical model of child abuse and the treatment of abuse survivors that emphasizes the development of skills in interpersonal protection. Dr. Thomas trained psychotherapists in Eastern Europe, Russia, and southern Africa, and his experiences in these cultures inform his views about trauma and human growth.

Positive emotion in distress as a potentially effective emotion regulation strategy for depression: A preliminary investigation

“…Based on the psychotherapy literature, items were gathered in terms of emotion regulation and PEIDS constructs highlighted in the literature regarding cognitive (Gilbert, 2010), behavioural (Linehan, 1993), relational (Fosha, 2000;Watson, 2007), and experiential psychotherapy (Gleiser, Ford, & Fosha, 2008;Greenberg, 2002;Young et al, 2003). Other related articles that focused on positive emotions during negative affective states included the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 1998), research on positive emotions (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002;Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998;Tugade & Fredrickson, 2000), psychopathology on eating disorders (Esplen & Garfinkel, 1998;Kearney-Cooke & Striegel-Moore, 1994), borderline personality disorders (Sansone et al, 1991), trauma-related disorders (Burgess et al, 1995;Paivio & Pascual-Leone, 2010;Thomas, 2006), anxiety (Daly & Mallinckrodt, 2009), and depressive disorders (Gilbert & Irons, 2004;Kelly et al, 2009). Items were also developed by extensively observing a psychotherapy demonstration video in which a client regulates her emotions by accessing positive emotions (Greenberg, 2007;Ito, 2011).…”

“…In addition to the behavioural (Linehan, 1993) and cognitive (Gilbert, 2010) therapies, the utilization of positive emotion could be observed in other types of psychotherapy such as experiential (Greenberg, Rice, & Elliott, 1993;Young, Klosko, & Weishaar, 2003) and psychodynamic therapies (Fosha, 2000). As these therapies are designed to target a variety of mental disorders, the alleviating effect of positive emotion against negative emotion in psychopathology is considered in eating disorders (Esplen & Garfinkel, 1998;Kearney-Cooke & Striegel-Moore, 1994), borderline personality disorders (Sansone, Fine, & Mulderig, 1991), trauma-related disorders (Burgess, Hartman, & Clements, 1995;Paivio & Pascual-Leone, 2010;Thomas, 2006), and depressive disorders (Gilbert & Irons, 2004;Kelly, Zuroff, & Shapira, 2009).…”