Therapy and Dissociation: a short article
Hi,
I have been fascinated with the client centered approach to therapy ever since I first heard of it.
But I have not yet met a therapist who does this approach.
My guess is that most therapists are controlling and nurturing (even bossy) -- that is why they study to become therapists. That means, I guess, that not enough patients have the opportunity to work with a Client-Centered therapist.
Have any of you ever worked with a therapist like this? One who does not try to "FiX" the patient?
M.
http://www.nesttd.org/client.htm
Quote:
Client-Centered Therapy and Dissociation
by Seth Robert Segall, Ph.D.
Whenever the treatment of the dissociative disorders is discussed, one hears about the usual suspects: psychodynamically informed psychotherapy, hypnotic techniques, EMDR, attachment-theory oriented treatment, Ego State Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
I have always felt like the odd man out when I tell colleagues that I rely mostly on a client-centered approach.
I was therefore pleased to see that there is now a book chapter entitled "A client-centered approach to therapeutic work with dissociated and fragile process." The chapter was written by Margaret Warner and appears in the Handbook of Experiential Psychotherapy edited by Leslie Greenberg, Jeanne Watson, and Germain Lietaer and published by Guilford in 1998.
It has always seemed to me that the client-centered approach with its emphasis on therapist genuineness, empathy and unconditional positive regard, with its abhorrence of suggestive and coercive therapeutic interventions, and with its focus on helping clients to attend to their inner embodied felt experiencing was a natural match for the needs of many dissociative clients.
The client-centered approach allows clients to work at their own particular pace without much danger of the therapist pushing the client into places where the client is not quite ready to go.
In addition, client-centered therapists are particularly adept at sitting unflinchingly with clients in their moments of despair and hopelessness without needing to "fix them."
. . . There is no special interest in or fascination with dissociative phenomena.
There is only a special interest in the client's exploring the way-things-really-are-in-the-moment, and the client's growing capacity for tolerating, honoring, and welcoming the entirety of his or her experiencing in all its ambiguity and complexity.
. . . . .
The complexities of treating dissociative disorders are such that no one approach has a corner on the correct treatment market. Nevertheless, the client-centered approach has much to recommend it. Had it been more of an influence in the early days of treating dissociation, many problems could have been avoided.
I am speaking here of the problems that arise from suggestive and coercive treatment, and also the problems that arise when therapists rescue clients rather than having faith in clients's own abilities to self-heal.
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