Biomedical subjects

P H Ornstein

Publications and source records attributed to P H Ornstein.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1981

The bipolar self in the psychoanalytic treatment process: clinical-theoretical considerations.

This study of "The Two analyses of Mr. Z." compared and contrasted the different clinical and theoretical approaches to the understanding and explanation of the patient's psychopathology and the significantly different outcome of each analytic experience. The conclusion was reached that viewing Mr. Z.'s emerging psychopathology in the transference as defensive against a central, oedipal transference neurosis, precluded the full mobilization and working through of Mr. Z.'s self-pathology in the first analysis. This approach has thus led to limited therapeutic results, mainly through the patient's compliance with the analyst's expectations. The recognition of essentially the same clinical data, as expressions of a mirror transference first and of an idealizing transference later on--the core elements of the new theory--expanded the depth and breadth of the second analytic process. This approach has led to: (1) more accurate genetic reconstructions, (2) a better grasp of the nature of Mr. Z.'s psychopathology, and (3) more profound therapeutic results via transmuting internalizations in the working-through process of the selfobject transferences.

Adult↗

PubMed1980

Formulating interpretations in clinical psychoanalysis.

The psychoanalytic psychology of the self led not only to a theoretical expansion of our central concepts of transference and resistance, but it also led to a decisive, dual shift in the manner in which we formulate and focus our interventions, irrespective of the nature of the patient's psychopathology. What we have described here as the empathic, reconstructive-interpretive process, and have exemplified with a clinical vignette, bridges within the psychoanalytic process the often still prevailing sharp division between conflict-based, structural psychopathology and deficiency-based, primary self-pathology. The utilization of a predominantly empathic mode of listening and responding (as contrasted with a predominantly inferential mode) is of particular significance in unifying the psychoanalytic approach to the various forms of psychopathology. Empathic reconstructive-interpretations encompass both transference repetitions and new experiences. Such interventions, therefore, responded to the total self of the patient, rather than to isolated, single elements in his associations and thereby lend them their broad therapeutic leverage.

Adult↗

PubMed1977

The family physician as a "therapeutic instrument".

The doctor-patient relationship is the matrix of the family physician's diagnostic-therapeutic activity. To enhance the curative potential inherent in this relationship, the physician has to be able to make contact with the person in the patient. To achieve this, the physician must develop his potential for empathic observation, empathic listening, and introspective self-awareness. The use of these skills in a non-judgmental, non-condemning, and non-manipulative climate creates an optimum therapeutic setting. Rather than focusing upon the body of knowledge available in the behavioral sciences, or upon the pursuit of learning "psychiatry" or "psychotherapy," the family physician should first develop his own personal skills. He should then apply them to his own patients, in his own setting, in order to discover the therapeutic approaches appropriate to this patients and their problems. The psychiatrist, psychologist, or any other behavioral scientist can be most helpful to the family physician if he is prepared to aid him in his own discoveries rather than attempt to teach him the accumulated knowledge from his own field.

Education, Medical, Graduate↗

PubMed1975

On the interpretive process in psychoanalysis.

The concept of interpretation and its function in the psychoanalytic process is updated by emphasizing the analyst's contributions to the psychoanalytic treatment process through his interpretations of resistance and transference. By incorporating Kohut's recent contributions to the psychoanalysis of narcissistic personality disorders into our general considerations regarding the process of interpretation, we have been aided in our effort to unify the theory of the psychoanalytic treatment process. We offer a broadened definition of the interpretative process and stress the added "interpersonal" dimension of resistance and transference, namely, those elements in the development of both, which are affected by the analyst;s personality and the manner of his interpretive and noninterpretive interventions. This makes the artificially sharp dichotomy between verbal and nonverbal interpretations or between interpretations and noninterpretive interventions unnecessary. The recognition of the "self-object" role of the analyst in the narcissistic transferences not only lends more precision to our understanding of archaic narcissistic experiences (whishes, demands, fantasies, etc.), but makes their interpretation within the transference our preferred analytic response. The need to foster the so-called "real relationship" between patient and analyst and the need to deal with such "nontransference" aspects of the relationship noninterpretively is thus replaced with interpretive interventions. To underline our emphasis on the analyst;s contributions to the analytic process, clinical samples and brief vignettes illustrate the manner in which interpretations may retard or promote the analytic process.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMed1972