Faculty Bibliography

Describes rating scales for assessing the emphasis of specific actions of therapists and patients during dynamic psychotherapy. Interrater and test-retest reliability data are presented, based on ratings of 100 psychotherapy sessions, documenting the good to moderate reliability of the scales. Because they are relatively easy to use and descriptively close to actual clinical activity, the scales may have application in a variety of research and training settings. (47 ref)

The authors studied the case material for patients treated with either psychoanalysis or brief therapy to examine the basis for the various states of pathological grief after berevavement. They view these states as intensifications or unusual prolongations of states found in normal grief and describe them in terms of the reemergence of self-images and role relationship models that had been held in check by the existence ofthe deceased person. This conclusion concerning preexisting mental schemata leads to an elaboration and partial revision of theories of regression, ambivalence, and introjection as causes of pathological grief

Psychiatric diagnoses and formulations have classically focused on the chief complaint of the patient as part of a larger pattern of episodes and reactions. This is a form of state analysis in which the problem states of a person are carefully described and distinguished from other states. The authors suggest methods for deepening such formulations by grounding description of problem states in models of other states and models of state transitions. The resultant method of state analysis can be applied to examination of change processes during treatment as well as to initial diagnostic formulations. As an example of its use and possible extension to quantification, state analysis is applied to description of status and change in a person treated by brief psychotherapy. Because state analysis is based on observable behavior and reportable conscious experiences, it serves as a useful beginning point upon which to anchor more extended inferences about psychodynamics