In this presentation, Dr. Tobin presents a model of romantic love that synthesizes concepts from evolutionary psychology, Freudian thought, interpersonal neurobiology, and intersubjectivity. Notions of free will and conscious decision-making regarding the choice of romantic partners are refuted. Instead, Dr. Tobin presents an unconsciously motivated perspective on romantic love that emphasizes our uncanny tendency to select and induce others to hurt us emotionally iin ways that are familiar and to which we are highly adapted.
Harry Stack Sullivan was an American psychiatrist who developed an interpersonal theory of personality. He believed that personality is shaped through relationships with others from childhood onward. Sullivan emphasized the importance of early friendships and how they form the basis of personality. His theory viewed personality as being inseparable from the social contexts and interpersonal relationships that people experience. Mental disorders were seen as having interpersonal origins related to problems within social environments. Sullivan made significant contributions to psychotherapy and is considered the first to develop an comprehensive interpersonal theory of personality.
Gestalt therapy was developed in the 1940s to help clients gain awareness of their present experiences and behaviors. The therapist's role is to increase clients' self-awareness and understanding of themselves and their environment. Gestalt therapy techniques include exercises like the empty chair method where clients imagine dialoguing with parts of themselves. The overall goal is for clients to accept responsibility for themselves and grow towards wholeness in the present moment.
Carl Jung founded analytical psychology, which views people as both conscious and unconscious, rational and irrational. He believed occult phenomena and inherited ancestral experiences influence individuals. The psyche contains personal experiences and collective archetypes. Dreams are a source of understanding the unconscious, which aims for wholeness. Jung characterized types by attitudes and functions, and developed stages of life. His theories organized observations but lacked falsifiability.
Gestalt therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach that focuses on developing awareness of one's true self. It views humans holistically rather than as a sum of parts. The goal is to help clients become aware of what they are experiencing in the present moment through experiments designed by the therapist. Major principles include holism, phenomenology, figure formation process, and organismic self-regulation. The therapist aims to help clients address unfinished business from the past and overcome resistances to full contact in the present through awareness, acceptance, integration, and taking responsibility for their choices rather than trying to control others.
Carl Jung broke from Freud to establish his own theory of analytical psychology. Jung believed that in addition to repressed experiences, we are also influenced by a collective unconscious containing archetypes inherited from our ancestors. The psyche has conscious, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious levels. The collective unconscious contains archetypes like persona and self that influence our behavior. Jung's theory views people as having both opposing traits like introverted and extroverted, and the goal is achieving self-realization through balancing these opposing forces.
Alfred Adler developed Individual Psychology which focused on understanding human behavior through examining goals, lifestyle, birth order, and social interest. Key concepts in Adlerian theory include inferiority, superiority, social interest, family constellation, and basic mistakes. Adlerian therapy uses techniques like lifestyle analysis, interpretation, encouragement, and paradoxical intention to help clients develop social interest and change maladaptive behaviors.
1. Bowen's theory describes an evolutionary process where families balance the needs for intimacy and individuality.
2. Psychological problems stem from a family's inability to effectively manage stress, leading to increased reactivity and fusion between members.
3. Bowen's theory incorporates concepts from other therapies and retains broad applicability, emphasizing the role of stress in health issues.
Various unconscious factors that set the stage for the unfolding of relational dynamics that can be distressing, emotionally painful, and highly destructive. The narcissist-codependent bond is a good example of this. I have argued that such dynamics are largely pre-determined and out of our control and awareness, which is why so many people become frustrated at identifying and limiting the negative impact of these dynamics on their lives. Consequently, these dynamics overtake our best efforts at living a healthy, productive life, and tend to cause chronic damage in our romantic lives, careers, friendships, and even in relation to our own self-care and self-esteem. In this talk, I present an approach to identifying and taking better control of these dynamics – so that we do not allow them to unfold in their typical insidious fashion. My perspective on interpersonal transformation involves a systematic analysis of what constitutes how we view others and how others view us. I will suggest that how we view and are viewed consist primarily of fabrications that perpetuate a series of emotional and psychological provocations which, ultimately, restrict how we maneuver through and negotiate the social world. How to identify and alter these fabrications is perhaps the most common question that has come up in our groups so far and that is asked by patients who see me individually for psychotherapy.
Harry Stack Sullivan was an American psychiatrist who developed an interpersonal theory of personality. He believed that personality is shaped through relationships with others from childhood onward. Sullivan emphasized the importance of early friendships and how they form the basis of personality. His theory viewed personality as being inseparable from the social contexts and interpersonal relationships that people experience. Mental disorders were seen as having interpersonal origins related to problems within social environments. Sullivan made significant contributions to psychotherapy and is considered the first to develop an comprehensive interpersonal theory of personality.
Gestalt therapy was developed in the 1940s to help clients gain awareness of their present experiences and behaviors. The therapist's role is to increase clients' self-awareness and understanding of themselves and their environment. Gestalt therapy techniques include exercises like the empty chair method where clients imagine dialoguing with parts of themselves. The overall goal is for clients to accept responsibility for themselves and grow towards wholeness in the present moment.
Carl Jung founded analytical psychology, which views people as both conscious and unconscious, rational and irrational. He believed occult phenomena and inherited ancestral experiences influence individuals. The psyche contains personal experiences and collective archetypes. Dreams are a source of understanding the unconscious, which aims for wholeness. Jung characterized types by attitudes and functions, and developed stages of life. His theories organized observations but lacked falsifiability.
Gestalt therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach that focuses on developing awareness of one's true self. It views humans holistically rather than as a sum of parts. The goal is to help clients become aware of what they are experiencing in the present moment through experiments designed by the therapist. Major principles include holism, phenomenology, figure formation process, and organismic self-regulation. The therapist aims to help clients address unfinished business from the past and overcome resistances to full contact in the present through awareness, acceptance, integration, and taking responsibility for their choices rather than trying to control others.
Carl Jung broke from Freud to establish his own theory of analytical psychology. Jung believed that in addition to repressed experiences, we are also influenced by a collective unconscious containing archetypes inherited from our ancestors. The psyche has conscious, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious levels. The collective unconscious contains archetypes like persona and self that influence our behavior. Jung's theory views people as having both opposing traits like introverted and extroverted, and the goal is achieving self-realization through balancing these opposing forces.
Alfred Adler developed Individual Psychology which focused on understanding human behavior through examining goals, lifestyle, birth order, and social interest. Key concepts in Adlerian theory include inferiority, superiority, social interest, family constellation, and basic mistakes. Adlerian therapy uses techniques like lifestyle analysis, interpretation, encouragement, and paradoxical intention to help clients develop social interest and change maladaptive behaviors.
1. Bowen's theory describes an evolutionary process where families balance the needs for intimacy and individuality.
2. Psychological problems stem from a family's inability to effectively manage stress, leading to increased reactivity and fusion between members.
3. Bowen's theory incorporates concepts from other therapies and retains broad applicability, emphasizing the role of stress in health issues.
Various unconscious factors that set the stage for the unfolding of relational dynamics that can be distressing, emotionally painful, and highly destructive. The narcissist-codependent bond is a good example of this. I have argued that such dynamics are largely pre-determined and out of our control and awareness, which is why so many people become frustrated at identifying and limiting the negative impact of these dynamics on their lives. Consequently, these dynamics overtake our best efforts at living a healthy, productive life, and tend to cause chronic damage in our romantic lives, careers, friendships, and even in relation to our own self-care and self-esteem. In this talk, I present an approach to identifying and taking better control of these dynamics – so that we do not allow them to unfold in their typical insidious fashion. My perspective on interpersonal transformation involves a systematic analysis of what constitutes how we view others and how others view us. I will suggest that how we view and are viewed consist primarily of fabrications that perpetuate a series of emotional and psychological provocations which, ultimately, restrict how we maneuver through and negotiate the social world. How to identify and alter these fabrications is perhaps the most common question that has come up in our groups so far and that is asked by patients who see me individually for psychotherapy.
The document discusses Carl Rogers and his person-centered therapy approach. Some key points include:
- Rogers believed people have an innate potential for growth and self-actualization given the right environment.
- The therapeutic relationship is the most important factor in therapy, with the therapist displaying genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding.
- The goal of therapy is to help clients fully understand themselves by exploring their feelings in a non-judgmental setting. Clients are seen as capable of solving their own problems.
Strategic family therapy is a directive, brief therapy approach developed by Jay Haley in the 1960s-1970s. It is based on principles of structural family therapy and communication theory. The therapist takes responsibility for influencing the family and designs specific interventions for each family's problems. Interventions may include paradoxical directives, prescribing symptoms, or reframing problems positively. The goal is to create second-order changes to disrupt stuck interaction patterns and restore family homeostasis.
Psychodynamic approach to counselling JerryJames34
Psychodynamic counseling is based on Freud's theory that understanding the unconscious mind is key to helping clients. It focuses on uncovering repressed emotions from childhood that influence present problems. The counselor helps clients gain insight into patterns and relationships to resolve issues like depression and anxiety. Techniques include exploring dreams, transference, and early experiences to understand how the past affects the present. While criticized as unscientific, proponents argue psychodynamic therapy provides deep emotional insight to help free clients from the past.
This document discusses several ethical issues in couples and family therapy including responsibility to clients, confidentiality, informed consent, training issues, and dealing with intimate partner violence. It notes that therapists must maintain professional competence and integrity, protect client confidentiality with exceptions when harm may occur, obtain informed consent covering the therapy process, and protect victims of intimate partner violence while also helping the violent partner change. Therapists are advised to have self-knowledge, obtain proper training and supervision, and avoid imposing their own values onto clients.
Aaron Beck was a pioneering psychiatrist who developed cognitive therapy. He was born in 1921 and had a difficult childhood that influenced his later work. Beck developed cognitive therapy which focuses on identifying and disputing dysfunctional thoughts and beliefs. Cognitive therapy has been successfully applied to many disorders and is now one of the most influential psychotherapy approaches.
Melanie Klein was a psychoanalyst born in Vienna in 1892 who specialized in working with young children and developed Object Relations Theory. She believed that personality is largely a product of early mother-child relationships and emphasized interpersonal relationships, especially within the family. Her theory placed less emphasis on biologically-based drives and more on consistent patterns of relationships. Some key concepts in her theory included phantasies, objects, positions, and the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions in child development. While her theory highlighted the importance of early development and she directly treated children, a weakness was the lack of controlled studies to validate her theories which were based on clinical experience.
Melanie Klein was an Austrian-British psychoanalyst who developed object relations theory. She believed that infants as young as 4 months old engage in psychic life involving phantasies of good and bad breast objects, and employ defense mechanisms like splitting, projection, and introjection to manage anxiety from destructive impulses. Klein argued the superego and Oedipus complex emerge much earlier than Freud theorized, with the superego instilling terror rather than guilt in young children. Her theories challenged and extended Freud's work through observations of children too young for traditional psychoanalysis.
This document provides an overview of key concepts in family therapy. It discusses systems theory perspectives, including circular causality, reciprocal relationships, and holistic views of families. Specific models are described, like structural and strategic family therapy. Key concepts like boundaries, narratives, and power differentials are examined. The document emphasizes strengths-based and solution-focused approaches, co-constructed change, and the importance of self-reflection for therapists.
1. Social psychology emerged as a new discipline in the 19th century and studies how individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others in social situations.
2. Key figures in the early development of social psychology include Wilhelm Wundt, who published some of the first works on social psychology, and Edward Ross and William McDougall, who published early social psychology textbooks.
3. Social psychology expanded in topics studied from the 1940s-1980s, with important research conducted on attitudes and persuasion, prejudice, obedience, bystander intervention, gender disparities, and social cognition.
Carl Jung believed that the psyche is made up of three levels: the conscious, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious. The conscious plays a minor role, while the personal unconscious contains repressed memories and the collective unconscious is inherited from ancestors. Jung proposed that archetypes like the persona, shadow, anima/animus exist in the collective unconscious and can be revealed through dreams, fantasies, and active imagination. He described personality types based on the attitudes of extraversion/introversion and the functions of thinking/feeling and sensing/intuiting. Jung believed individuals progress through life stages towards self-realization by integrating opposites within themselves.
Gestalt therapy was developed in the 1940s by Fritz and Laura Perls. It views individuals as "wholes" rather than being made up of separate mind, body, and soul components. The goal of gestalt therapy is to help clients gain awareness of themselves and their present challenges through techniques like role playing, dream analysis, and body work. While it can effectively increase self-awareness and improve relationships, gestalt therapy lacks a strong theoretical base and does not address diagnosis or the past.
Existential therapy focuses on helping clients find meaning and purpose in life. It explores themes like morality, freedom, responsibility and the meaning of life. Key figures who influenced existential therapy include Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Frankl, May and Yalom. Existential therapists believe humans are free and responsible for their choices. The therapist-client relationship is important, with the therapist assisting the client in broadening their self-awareness and considering new options. The goal is for clients to accept responsibility for their lives rather than blaming external forces.
OVERVIEW OF OBJECT RELATIONS AND ATTACHMENT THEORIESANCYBS
Object relations and attachment theories focus on the development of relationships in early childhood and their impact on future relationships. Margaret Mahler's separation-individuation theory describes stages from symbiosis to object constancy in the first 3 years. Heinz Kohut's self psychology emphasizes healthy development of self through mirroring, idealizing, and twinship transference. Melanie Klein's work describes the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions in the first year through splitting and integration of good and bad objects. Winnicott and Bowlby further contributed to understanding the importance of a continuous caregiver relationship for healthy ego and attachment development.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is a type cognitive therapy first used by Albert Ellis which focuses on resolving emotional and behavioral problems. The goal of the therapy is to change irrational beliefs to more rational ones.
REBT encourages a person to identify their general and irrational beliefs (e.g. I must be perfect") and subsequently persuades the person to challenge these false beliefs through reality testing.
Schema focused therapy is a type of psychotherapy that combines cognitive behavioral therapy, experiential therapy, and interpersonal therapy. It aims to address maladaptive schemas, which are broad patterns of thinking and behaving. The therapy identifies 18 common schemas that can be harmful, such as defectiveness, failure, and dependence. Schema focused therapy uses techniques from other models to modify schemas, improve thinking patterns, and replace negative thoughts with more positive ones for better outcomes. It has been found effective for various disorders and issues.
This document provides an overview of existential therapy. It discusses key figures in existential therapy like Viktor Frankl who developed logotherapy. It also discusses Rollo May and his contributions. The document outlines some core concepts of existential therapy including its focus on finding meaning and purpose in life. It describes the goals and processes of existential therapy including techniques like the empty chair. It also notes some advantages and disadvantages of the approach.
This document summarizes key concepts related to marriage and relationships. It discusses intimacy, the life cycle model of development, power and conflict, and symptom development. It notes that marriage refers to any committed partnership. The document then reviews common reasons people get married as well as poor reasons. It identifies three patterns of marital distress and chief complaints that couples experience. Finally, it provides an overview of the life cycle model and the developmental tasks associated with launching young adults from their family of origin.
In this presentation, Dr. Tobin argues that inauthenticity in relationships may be characterized by dynamics in which two people relate to each other defensively and with an unconscious wish to recapitulate historical relational trauma.
The document discusses Carl Rogers and his person-centered therapy approach. Some key points include:
- Rogers believed people have an innate potential for growth and self-actualization given the right environment.
- The therapeutic relationship is the most important factor in therapy, with the therapist displaying genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding.
- The goal of therapy is to help clients fully understand themselves by exploring their feelings in a non-judgmental setting. Clients are seen as capable of solving their own problems.
Strategic family therapy is a directive, brief therapy approach developed by Jay Haley in the 1960s-1970s. It is based on principles of structural family therapy and communication theory. The therapist takes responsibility for influencing the family and designs specific interventions for each family's problems. Interventions may include paradoxical directives, prescribing symptoms, or reframing problems positively. The goal is to create second-order changes to disrupt stuck interaction patterns and restore family homeostasis.
Psychodynamic approach to counselling JerryJames34
Psychodynamic counseling is based on Freud's theory that understanding the unconscious mind is key to helping clients. It focuses on uncovering repressed emotions from childhood that influence present problems. The counselor helps clients gain insight into patterns and relationships to resolve issues like depression and anxiety. Techniques include exploring dreams, transference, and early experiences to understand how the past affects the present. While criticized as unscientific, proponents argue psychodynamic therapy provides deep emotional insight to help free clients from the past.
This document discusses several ethical issues in couples and family therapy including responsibility to clients, confidentiality, informed consent, training issues, and dealing with intimate partner violence. It notes that therapists must maintain professional competence and integrity, protect client confidentiality with exceptions when harm may occur, obtain informed consent covering the therapy process, and protect victims of intimate partner violence while also helping the violent partner change. Therapists are advised to have self-knowledge, obtain proper training and supervision, and avoid imposing their own values onto clients.
Aaron Beck was a pioneering psychiatrist who developed cognitive therapy. He was born in 1921 and had a difficult childhood that influenced his later work. Beck developed cognitive therapy which focuses on identifying and disputing dysfunctional thoughts and beliefs. Cognitive therapy has been successfully applied to many disorders and is now one of the most influential psychotherapy approaches.
Melanie Klein was a psychoanalyst born in Vienna in 1892 who specialized in working with young children and developed Object Relations Theory. She believed that personality is largely a product of early mother-child relationships and emphasized interpersonal relationships, especially within the family. Her theory placed less emphasis on biologically-based drives and more on consistent patterns of relationships. Some key concepts in her theory included phantasies, objects, positions, and the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions in child development. While her theory highlighted the importance of early development and she directly treated children, a weakness was the lack of controlled studies to validate her theories which were based on clinical experience.
Melanie Klein was an Austrian-British psychoanalyst who developed object relations theory. She believed that infants as young as 4 months old engage in psychic life involving phantasies of good and bad breast objects, and employ defense mechanisms like splitting, projection, and introjection to manage anxiety from destructive impulses. Klein argued the superego and Oedipus complex emerge much earlier than Freud theorized, with the superego instilling terror rather than guilt in young children. Her theories challenged and extended Freud's work through observations of children too young for traditional psychoanalysis.
This document provides an overview of key concepts in family therapy. It discusses systems theory perspectives, including circular causality, reciprocal relationships, and holistic views of families. Specific models are described, like structural and strategic family therapy. Key concepts like boundaries, narratives, and power differentials are examined. The document emphasizes strengths-based and solution-focused approaches, co-constructed change, and the importance of self-reflection for therapists.
1. Social psychology emerged as a new discipline in the 19th century and studies how individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others in social situations.
2. Key figures in the early development of social psychology include Wilhelm Wundt, who published some of the first works on social psychology, and Edward Ross and William McDougall, who published early social psychology textbooks.
3. Social psychology expanded in topics studied from the 1940s-1980s, with important research conducted on attitudes and persuasion, prejudice, obedience, bystander intervention, gender disparities, and social cognition.
Carl Jung believed that the psyche is made up of three levels: the conscious, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious. The conscious plays a minor role, while the personal unconscious contains repressed memories and the collective unconscious is inherited from ancestors. Jung proposed that archetypes like the persona, shadow, anima/animus exist in the collective unconscious and can be revealed through dreams, fantasies, and active imagination. He described personality types based on the attitudes of extraversion/introversion and the functions of thinking/feeling and sensing/intuiting. Jung believed individuals progress through life stages towards self-realization by integrating opposites within themselves.
Gestalt therapy was developed in the 1940s by Fritz and Laura Perls. It views individuals as "wholes" rather than being made up of separate mind, body, and soul components. The goal of gestalt therapy is to help clients gain awareness of themselves and their present challenges through techniques like role playing, dream analysis, and body work. While it can effectively increase self-awareness and improve relationships, gestalt therapy lacks a strong theoretical base and does not address diagnosis or the past.
Existential therapy focuses on helping clients find meaning and purpose in life. It explores themes like morality, freedom, responsibility and the meaning of life. Key figures who influenced existential therapy include Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Frankl, May and Yalom. Existential therapists believe humans are free and responsible for their choices. The therapist-client relationship is important, with the therapist assisting the client in broadening their self-awareness and considering new options. The goal is for clients to accept responsibility for their lives rather than blaming external forces.
OVERVIEW OF OBJECT RELATIONS AND ATTACHMENT THEORIESANCYBS
Object relations and attachment theories focus on the development of relationships in early childhood and their impact on future relationships. Margaret Mahler's separation-individuation theory describes stages from symbiosis to object constancy in the first 3 years. Heinz Kohut's self psychology emphasizes healthy development of self through mirroring, idealizing, and twinship transference. Melanie Klein's work describes the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions in the first year through splitting and integration of good and bad objects. Winnicott and Bowlby further contributed to understanding the importance of a continuous caregiver relationship for healthy ego and attachment development.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is a type cognitive therapy first used by Albert Ellis which focuses on resolving emotional and behavioral problems. The goal of the therapy is to change irrational beliefs to more rational ones.
REBT encourages a person to identify their general and irrational beliefs (e.g. I must be perfect") and subsequently persuades the person to challenge these false beliefs through reality testing.
Schema focused therapy is a type of psychotherapy that combines cognitive behavioral therapy, experiential therapy, and interpersonal therapy. It aims to address maladaptive schemas, which are broad patterns of thinking and behaving. The therapy identifies 18 common schemas that can be harmful, such as defectiveness, failure, and dependence. Schema focused therapy uses techniques from other models to modify schemas, improve thinking patterns, and replace negative thoughts with more positive ones for better outcomes. It has been found effective for various disorders and issues.
This document provides an overview of existential therapy. It discusses key figures in existential therapy like Viktor Frankl who developed logotherapy. It also discusses Rollo May and his contributions. The document outlines some core concepts of existential therapy including its focus on finding meaning and purpose in life. It describes the goals and processes of existential therapy including techniques like the empty chair. It also notes some advantages and disadvantages of the approach.
This document summarizes key concepts related to marriage and relationships. It discusses intimacy, the life cycle model of development, power and conflict, and symptom development. It notes that marriage refers to any committed partnership. The document then reviews common reasons people get married as well as poor reasons. It identifies three patterns of marital distress and chief complaints that couples experience. Finally, it provides an overview of the life cycle model and the developmental tasks associated with launching young adults from their family of origin.
In this presentation, Dr. Tobin argues that inauthenticity in relationships may be characterized by dynamics in which two people relate to each other defensively and with an unconscious wish to recapitulate historical relational trauma.
This document outlines 5 stages of falling in love for men: 1) Appreciation based on physical attraction, 2) Infatuation where a man tries to get a woman's attention, 3) Attraction where a connection forms if the woman shows interest back, 4) Impression where the man decides if he wants to pursue a relationship after winning her over, and 5) Love where the man knows he wants to be with the woman and falls in love. The stages assume no outside pressures, consistent intensity of feelings, no second thoughts, restricted emotions only to each other, and no undesirable behaviors.
The document contrasts Eastern and Western cultural values and philosophies. Some key differences discussed include Eastern traditions emphasizing inner spiritual development and viewing the self as part of a greater cosmic unity, while Western traditions emphasize individual achievement, success, and analyzing the external world. Religion also takes a more integrated role in daily life in Eastern cultures compared to the separation of religion and public life in Western secular societies.
This document discusses how advances in neuroscience can inform new approaches to leadership. It covers key topics like the triune brain model consisting of the reptilian, mammalian, and human/neocortex parts. The social brain and neuroplasticity are also discussed, highlighting how the brain is hardwired for social connection and continues developing throughout life. The presentation argues that understanding these brain concepts can help leaders tap into the power of the brain and develop the whole person, moving beyond more mechanistic leadership models to systemic approaches suited for today's complex environment.
This document discusses clinical assessment of developmental disorders. It introduces two main categories of developmental disorders - specific disorders like dyslexia and pervasive disorders like autism and intellectual disability. It proposes assessing developmental disorders via interviews, observation, psychometric tools and considering clinical variations in physical, emotional and social intelligence. Stages of development are also discussed from infancy through adulthood. Factors like immaturity, regression in illnesses and disorders like ADHD that can indirectly impact maturity are reviewed.
Promoting the Patient's Capacity to Suffer: A Revision of Contemporary Notion...James Tobin, Ph.D.
In this presentation, Dr. Tobin argues that the era of evidence-based treatment has inadvertently placed too much pressure and responsibility on the part of the clinician to "heal" the patient. Symptom reduction and characterologoical transformation are perspectives on therapeutic transformation that oversimplify the clinical situation. According to Dr. Tobin, a principle focus of psychodynamic treatment is increasing the patient's capacity to contact, tolerate, and represent his or her contributions to experience; learning by suffering denotes a psychological competency in which denial, minimization, and other defensive modes of distortion are replaced by more accurate appraisals of reality.
1) The document discusses how teenagers think about love based on a survey of over 500 teenagers. The survey found that teenagers believe love cannot last forever and requires sexual intimacy. Most teenagers think they are capable of having multiple partners.
2) The document also summarizes various philosophical and psychological perspectives on love from thinkers like Plato, Socrates, Freud, and Lee. Freud believed love forms from childhood relationships with parents while Lee described different styles of love.
3) From a scientific perspective, the document discusses the three stages of falling in love - lust, attraction, and attachment - and the biological factors like hormones and neurotransmitters involved in each stage.
Interpersonal Transformation (Part II): Attachment vs. RelatednessJames Tobin, Ph.D.
This document discusses the difference between attachment and relatedness in interpersonal relationships. Attachment in early childhood involves accommodating the mother's needs over one's own through suppression of feelings and hypervigilance. This can lead to splitting one's identity into a "fake" self that is expressed and a "not-me" self that is suppressed. Relatedness is a more mature achievement involving recognizing how one has been manipulated by others and being willing to express one's authentic needs. Relatedness is difficult but inspires intimacy, while attachment often involves using others to avoid knowing one's true self.
Inducing and Being Induced: How to Recognize Dysfunctional Relationship DynamicsJames Tobin, Ph.D.
As a species, we are socialized from birth to compromise various aspects of one’s true identity in order to appeal to the primary caregiver. Consequently, we learn how to play roles in relationships very early in development. Yet, role-playing continues into adulthood and even across the lifespan. Every human interaction may be conceptualized from the vantage point of roles, as roles organize emotional experience, the hierarchy of power between individual s and groups, and the execution of tasks. Human relationships, therefore, revolve around inhibitions and resistances to authentic intimacy given that roles provide an architecture of human relatedness and fend off psychological fears and anxieties about closeness. In no other aspect of human life is this most apparent than in romantic relationships. We unconsciously coerce or “induce” others to act in accordance with our role preference, and in turn we are coerced or induced to act in accordance with the role preferences of others. These induced roles quickly set into motion a sequence of interactions that constricts a person’s relational freedom, thus straight jacketing the person into a role that, over time, becomes quite rigid and constraining. Understanding these induction processes, as well as the unconscious longings that generate them, are perhaps the most important keys to having fulfilling, surprising, and viable relationships. In this presentation, I will discuss these induction processes, explain why they are so prevalent, and offer my thoughts on how they may be avoided and/or dissolved.
The document discusses the triune theory of brain evolution and its potential applications in developmental disorders. The triune theory proposes that the vertebrate brain can be divided into three main structures - the reptilian brain, limbic system, and neocortex - which evolved sequentially. This theory provides a framework for better understanding brain functioning and classifying behaviors. It may allow for a three-dimensional model of intelligence consisting of object, emotional, and social components. The document suggests this theory could improve the assessment and diagnostic criteria for autism by recognizing deficits in social and emotional skills/intelligence.
The Anatomy of Discovery in Psychotherapy: "Something So Familiar, It is Stra...James Tobin, Ph.D.
The document summarizes a presentation given by James Tobin, Ph.D at the Western Psychological Association Annual Convention on April 25, 2014. The presentation discussed the concept of discovery in psychotherapy and argued that true discovery occurs when patients recognize something familiar about themselves that was previously unintegrated or unformulated. The therapist's role is to create an environment that allows patients to self-observe and explore their experiences to promote this recognition, rather than imposing their own interpretations.
In this presentation, Dr. Tobin utilizes Alice Miller's characterization of the "gifted child" to suggest that many graduate students in clinical psychology and psychotherapy trainees have suffered early emotional trauma. A consequence of this trauma is a psychological and emotional investment in the mental healthcare professions as a means of continuing to adhere to a particular relational role. For Dr. Tobin, what is problematic about this professional aspiration is the characterological residue from early deprivations which often emerges in trainees' narcissistic and/or co-dependent tendencies as they begin to engage in the therapeutic role. Breaking from these tendencies affords greater perceptional and relational freedoms, an important training and supervisory milestone for trainees and early-career psychotherapists.
The Dynamics of Unconscious Communication: Projection, Projective Identificat...James Tobin, Ph.D.
According to Dr. Tobin, communication occurs at an unconscious level and is organized largely around psychological processes that re-create historical events. This talk seeks to clarify how projection and projective identification are relevant in all romantic relationship and engineer patterns of relatedness oriented toward re-traumatization.
This document discusses functional brain networks and network science approaches to studying the brain. It begins by defining complex systems and network science. It then outlines the main types of brain networks - anatomical and functional networks. Functional brain networks are constructed from time series data measuring brain activity and can be analyzed using network measures to study properties like segregation, integration and resilience.
The human brain evolved in three parts: the lizard brain (brain stem), mammalian brain (limbic system), and human brain (cortex). The brain stem controls vital functions like breathing and regulates arousal states. The limbic system is associated with emotions, motivation and memory formation. It includes the thalamus, hypothalamus and amygdala. The cortex is the outer layer and most recently evolved part responsible for higher-level thinking, language, and executive functioning. It is divided into four lobes - frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital - each associated with different cognitive and sensory functions.
The document discusses the concept of mindsight from the perspective of interpersonal neurobiology. It defines mind as both an embodied process within individuals and an emergent process from relationships between individuals. A healthy mind is one with integrated functioning, where differentiated parts are linked together. Mindsight focuses on how the middle prefrontal regions of the brain support functions like emotional balance, insight, empathy and flexibility that promote well-being through relationships and self-awareness.
The key principles of object relations therapy are that:
1) Children form internalized representations of their relationships with early caregivers that shape their character structure.
2) When a child's needs are not met by caregivers, their development becomes arrested as they suppress parts of themselves.
3) As adults, symptoms arise as veiled expressions of blocked aspects of the self.
Object relations therapy aims to help patients understand defensive relationship patterns and facilitate insight into transference to create new, healthier object relationships with the therapist. This model expands psychoanalysis beyond a focus on discrete affects.
Psychodynamic couple therapy is based on psychoanalytic theory and focuses on interpreting defenses and anxieties to foster change. The therapist aims to join with the couple at an unconscious level to provide emotional containment and interpret anxieties that previously overwhelmed them. Key theories underlying psychodynamic couple therapy include Fairbairn's model of psychic structures, Klein's theory of projective identification, and Winnicott's theory of the parent-infant relationship, which all view relationships and unconscious processes as central to understanding couples.
Social psychology involves studying how people relate to and influence one another. Key topics include attitudes, prejudice, aggression, attraction, love, and group behavior. Attitudes can guide actions if external pressures are low, the attitude is aware, and relevant to the behavior. However, actions often influence attitudes instead due to cognitive dissonance, the mental discomfort from inconsistent cognitions. Prejudice arises from categorization, vivid cases, a just world view, and provides an outlet for anger. Groups impact conformity, polarization, social loafing, and deindividuation where people lose their sense of self.
This document provides an overview of topics discussed in a human development psychology class, including:
1. A review of social psychology experiments and key terms, as well as a discussion of community psychology principles.
2. An exploration of various aspects of human development such as physical, cognitive, socioemotional, and moral development across the lifespan. Milestones, theories, and influential researchers are discussed.
3. Additional topics of interest are highlighted like the influence of family and peers on development.
The document aims to both review past material and introduce new areas of human development to students. A wide range of developmental perspectives and issues are concisely summarized.
This document provides a brief biography of Alfred Adler, founder of Individual Psychology, and summaries of some of his key ideas. It discusses Adler's early life struggles, his work with Freud and later split from psychoanalysis. Some of Adler's central beliefs involved human motivation towards social superiority and the influence of early family dynamics and birth order on personality development. Adler was one of the first to practice and advocate for group therapy techniques. The document also contrasts Adler's theories with Freud's and provides overviews of several Adlerian therapeutic concepts.
This document provides an overview of key concepts in systemic therapy, including social constructionism and its influence on understanding the self and emotions. It discusses how social constructionism views reality as co-constructed through language and relationships. The self is seen as developed through interactions with others from a young age. Emotions are also viewed as socially and culturally constructed. Context is emphasized as central to meaning, and the document outlines changes to traditional Milan principles like curiosity replacing neutrality. Circular questioning is introduced as a way to explore relationships.
Child Psychology - Sigmund freud theory Ishani Sharma
Freud's psychoanalytic theory of child development proposes that personality forms from the psychosexual stages that children progress through from birth to adolescence. His theory includes three components: the topographic model of the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious minds; the psychosexual stages of oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital; and the psychic apparatus of the id, ego, and superego. Successful completion of each stage supports healthy development, while fixation can result from unresolved conflicts. Freud's theory emphasizes the role of sexuality compared to other theories which focus more on cognitive or social factors.
The document discusses personality from several perspectives. It defines personality as the unique way individuals think, act and feel, distinguishing it from character and temperament. Personality is influenced by both temperament and life experiences. Freud's psychodynamic perspective views personality as consisting of the id, ego and superego, which develop through psychosexual stages and use defense mechanisms to manage internal conflicts. Other perspectives discussed are behaviorist, humanistic and trait theories of personality.
This presentation provides information about the Psychodynamic Theories of child psychology. It is well supported with examples and illustrations for a better understanding of the topic.
Hope you like it! Suggestions and feedback will be well appreciated! :)
Good Moral and Right Conduct: Developing concerns for others.pptxCabildoNeilAndreiT
Lesson 3: Developing Concerns for others
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the lesson, the students must be able to:
• describe the concepts of empathy and compassion;
• analyze day-to-day actions involving empathy and compassion;
appraise the synergy of the home and school in developing concern for others and
• demonstrate empathy and compassion within and beyond the family in everyday life.
INTRODUCTION
Michael Jackson popularized the song "Heal the World" and some lines run like this:
“Heal the world
Make it a better place For you and for me
And the entire human race
There are people dying
If you care enough for the living
Make it a better place For you and for me....”
The world needs people who are willing to help their fellowmen and heal the world especially in this time of the pandemic. Imagine a world without Mother Teresa, St. Francis of Assisi, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Efren Peñaflorida, Jr., Randy Halasan, and so many others.
Imagine a world without the frontliners, during pandemic. Imagine a world without the countless individuals who risked heir own lives to save others during wartime. Imagine a world without those who've run into burning buildings or executed other heroic feats of rescue during times of trauma. It's unthinkable.
Empathy and Compassion are very "in" concepts as the world becomes more and more technologically advanced. People may have the tendency to engage in solitary activities and be highly individualistic. These are not things of the past, instead they are relevant in modern everyday life. After all, they have the power to inspire courageous deeds and can also encourage all sorts of positive behaviors that have both individual and societal benefits.
ABSTRACTION
Evolutionary biologists have shown that human beings are social animals who have naturally evolved to care for each other. Psychology, as well, points out that we are primed for empathy by strong attachment relationships in the first two years of life. As we grow older we learn to be sensitive to the presence and needs of other people. We nurture relationships but there are times that we only look within our immediate sphere like our families but not easily beyond such.
The discussion will focus on empathy and compassion which are important to be responsive to the needs of other people and become concerned of other people's plights.
The document provides an overview of child psychology and its relevance to dentistry. It discusses several theories of child development, including Freud's psychosexual stages of development, Erikson's psychosocial stages, and Piaget's cognitive development stages. According to these theories, a child's psychological development progresses through distinct phases, and their experiences at each phase shape their behaviors and personality. Understanding child psychology is important for dental clinicians to effectively communicate with children, gain their confidence, and create a comfortable environment during treatments. The document also covers definitions, factors influencing child behavior, and behavioral management strategies.
The document discusses socialization and the nature vs nurture debate. It argues that most social scientists adopt a multi-factored approach that acknowledges both biological and environmental influences. Socialization is defined as the lifelong process of learning social norms and roles through various agents like family, school, peers and the media. The debate is complex with no single determining factor and most traits result from multiple interacting influences.
This document provides an overview of several theories and concepts in child psychology. It discusses Sigmund Freud's psychosexual stages of development and psychic triad model. It also covers Erik Erikson's psychosocial stages of development and Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Classical conditioning by Ivan Pavlov and operant conditioning by B.F. Skinner are explained. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs is also mentioned. The document provides definitions and examples to describe these major theories and concepts in child psychology.
Socialization refers to the lifelong process by which people learn their culture and develop their human potential. The document discusses several theories of socialization, including Freud's psychodynamic theory of personality development involving the id, ego and superego. It also summarizes Piaget's stages of cognitive development, Kohlberg's stages of moral development, and Mead's theory of how the self develops through social interaction and assuming social roles. Erikson's eight stages of psychosocial development are also outlined, with each stage involving balancing competing psychological forces and developing virtues. Overall, the document provides an overview of key socialization theories and perspectives.
This document provides an overview of several theories and concepts in child psychology. It discusses Sigmund Freud's psychosexual stages of development and psychic triad model. It also covers Erik Erikson's psychosocial stages of development and Jean Piaget's stages of cognitive development. Classical and operant conditioning theories from Ivan Pavlov, BF Skinner, and Albert Bandura are explained. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs is also mentioned. The document provides definitions and examples to summarize key concepts and theorists in child psychology.
Transactional analysis (TA) was formulated by Eric Berne in the 1960s as a model of psychotherapy and personality theory. It views personality as comprising three ego states - parent, adult, and child. The goal of TA therapy is to help clients transform themselves by identifying distorted ego states and restoring healthy communication patterns. Key concepts include strokes, transactions, games, and life scripts. While providing a simple framework, TA has been criticized for its cognitive focus and lack of empirical support since Berne's death.
Transactional analysis (TA) was formulated by Eric Berne in the 1960s as a model of psychotherapy and personality theory. It views personality as comprising three ego states - parent, adult, and child. The goal of TA therapy is to help clients transform themselves by identifying distorted ego states and restoring healthy communication patterns. Key concepts include transactions between ego states, games people play, and life scripts formed in childhood. TA aims to increase self-awareness and autonomy through techniques like treatment contracting, interrogation, and script analysis.
Attachment theory proposes that secure attachment to caregivers in infancy and early childhood is crucial for healthy social-emotional development. John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth were influential researchers who developed and tested attachment theory. Bowlby proposed that infants have an innate need to form attachments, and that secure attachment provides a child with a safe base to explore from and comfort when distressed. Ainsworth identified patterns of secure, avoidant, resistant, and disorganized attachment based on a child's response to separation from and reunion with their caregiver. Insecure attachment can result from inconsistent or neglectful caregiving and is associated with later psychopathology. Attachment theory is important in understanding the development of relationships and mental health.
The document discusses Conscious Discipline, a program that addresses the emotional intelligence of adults and children. It teaches adults to self-regulate so they can then teach children to do the same. This helps children move from physical or verbal aggression to using problem-solving skills. The document then provides examples of skills teachers can use when a child is in the survival, emotional, or executive state. These include noticing, assertiveness, routines, composure, rituals, encouragement, jobs, empathy, choices, and consequences. Finally, it discusses four brain-smart principles: the brain seeks patterns, exercise benefits the brain, outside connections build inside connections, and the brain functions best when safe.
This document provides an overview of key concepts in developmental psychology. It discusses three domains of development - physical, cognitive, and social/emotional. Nature and nurture both impact child development, as seen through comparisons of monozygotic and dizygotic twins. Child behavior is also influenced by parenting styles like authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting. Several theories of development are presented, including Piaget's stages of cognitive development, Kohlberg's stages of moral development, Erikson's psychosocial stages, and Vygotsky's sociocultural theory emphasizing social learning.
The document discusses several major theories of child development:
1) Psychoanalytic theory proposed by Freud which views development as shaped by unconscious desires and emotions. Freud identified stages of psychosexual development.
2) Erikson's psychosocial theory which describes eight stages of development each involving resolving a psychosocial crisis.
3) Social learning theory proposed by Bandura which emphasizes observational learning and how cognition shapes behavior.
4) Humanistic and cognitive theories which view humans as inherently good and focus on conscious thoughts, creativity, and growth. Key theories discussed are Rogers' humanistic theory and Piaget's stages of cognitive development.
The document discusses how our sense of self is shaped by our social world through three main points:
1. Our social surroundings, such as the roles we play and social comparisons we make, influence how we develop our self-concept and see ourselves. Playing new roles can change how we think about ourselves, and comparing ourselves to others helps define our self-image.
2. Our experiences of success, failure, and how others judge us also impact our self-concept. Succeeding at challenges boosts our self-esteem while failures can diminish it. Others' positive views of us can help us see ourselves positively as well.
3. Culture provides social identities and expectations that shape our understanding of
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One Way Out of Enactment: The Patient's Differentiation from the Therapist
Why We Love Who We Love: A Psychodynamic Perspective on the Loss of Free Will
1. Why We Love Who We Love:
A Psychodynamic Perspective on the Loss of
Free Will
James Tobin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology
The American School of Professional
Psychology/Argosy University
Private Practice, Newport Beach, CA
www.jamestobinphd.com
949-338-4388
February 24, 2014
2. Outline for Tonight’s Talk
• Part I: Analytic Theory and Object Relations
• Part II: Attachment Theory
• Part III: A Psychodynamic View of How We
Fall in Love
• Part IV: The Emerging Field of Interpersonal
Neurobiology
2
4. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
•Austrian neurologist
•Psychoanalysis was
originally formulated as
a philosophy of life;
developed into a
metapsychology.
4
5. Basic Tenets of Classical Drive Theory
• Drives are often in conflict with reality, and
are thus defended against.
• The original model of the mind (topographic
model) featured repression as dividing the
conscious from the unconscious.
• Repressed material remains
compartmentalized but consistently emerges
into mental life, whether or not it is
cognitively or affectively mediated.
5
6. Basic Tenets of Classical Drive Theory
• “We are doomed to repeat what we do not
remember” – Freud’s discovery of the
repetition compulsion (loss of our own
agency, our free will).
• Attempts to bring drives into conscious
awareness repressed material meets
psychological resistance.
• Once unconscious material is “represented,”
the person is liberated from its effects.
6
7. Basic Principles of Classical Drive
Theory
• The patient’s transference onto the therapist
was Freud’s major discovery, providing
evidence of the motivation for repetition
compulsion.
• What actually gets “transferred” is the
ungratifying nature of the parental object, i.e.,
the frustration generated by the primary
caregiver that could not be managed by the
ego (the mechanism of defensive processes).
7
8. Transference Neurosis: The Talking
Cure of Psychoanalysis
8
Real
Therapist
Transference
Material Transference
Material
Real
Therapist
Transference
Material
9. Theoretical Developments Following
Freud’s Classical Drive Model
• Ego Psychology: Anna Freud’s The Ego and the Mechanisms
of Defense (1936)
• Object Relations: Otto Rank, Fairbairn, Melanie Klein,
Ferenczi, Winnicott, Guntrip (1940s and 1950s)
• The Interpersonal School: Harry Stack Sullivan’s The
Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry (1953)
• Self Psychology: Heinz Kohut (1970s): The Analysis of the
Self
• The Relational School: Stephen A. Mitchell and Jay
Greenberg’s Object Relations in Psychoanalytic
Theory (1983)
• Intersubjectivity: Robert Stolorow, George E. Atwood,
Jessica Benjamin, and Daniel Stern (1980s to present)
9
10. “Object”
• Object = another
human being, a
human relationship
• Seeking relationships
emphasized more
than the tension
reduction of classical
drive theory.
10
11. Melanie Klein
• Observational Study of children:
– Children have the drive to seek relationships
– Children devoted more energy to constructing their
interpersonal worlds than trying to control libidinal impulses or
to discharge tension
– Children have the need to control aggressive/negative/critical
feelings directed at significant figures in their lives
• Introduced the study of relationships
• Focus on the early relationship between mother and child
• Infants internalize their relationships with their caregiver
(introject)
11
12. The Introject, Projection, and
Projective Identification
• The introject consists of the child’s construction of (1)
self, (2) other, and (3) self in relation to other.
• Klein linked the intrapsychic framework of the introject
to actual real-world relationships, thus moving into
territory Freud never got to.
• The major theoretical construct that allowed this to
occur was Klein’s notion of projection: whatever is
“disavowed” gets projected onto the other. Often, the
other is destined or induced to identify with the
projection (projective identification), thus becoming in
real life what exists in the person’s mind.
12
13. Klein’s Normative Process
• Klein originally theorized a normative process
in the child-parent relationship in which the
mother contained the child’s projective
material:
• Early family experiences –> Introject –>
Projection –> Partial Projective Identification
by Mother –> Mother contains the projected
material and reintrojects it back into the child
in a more benign form.
13
17. The Psychology of Attachment
• The study of attachment (between child and
parent) has been a major research topic in
psychology for the last 5 decades.
• What we have learned is that the infant/child
has evolved highly advanced skills for
detecting how to get from mother what
he/she need and wants.
17
18. The Attachment Dance
• Attachment becomes a dance consisting of the
infant seeking what he/she wants, mother
giving it/not giving it, and an ongoing tug of
war that escalates until ultimately the dyad
reaches some form of stability, a status-quo.
• The mother, for the most part, wins! The
infant adapts to the mother vs. the mother
adapting to the child.
18
19. Personality is Adaptation
• The young child’s personality becomes
organized around all of the nuanced behaviors
and emotions required to participate
successfully in the attachment dance with
mother.
19
20. Personality is Adaptation
• For example, a depressed
mother may not be very
responsive to a child, but she
gets more responsive when the
child acts cute or is funny; the
child learns this quickly and
efficiently; the dance that
ensues between them involves
the child “warming up” the
mother (by making her laugh
or feel better) so that the
mother moves out of a
depressive state and enters a
more optimal position to
respond to the child.
20
21. Personality is Adaptation
• This relational sequence, across thousands of
repeated interactions, becomes well-
patterned and essentially solidifies in a
specific style of personality the child takes on.
21
22. Personality is Adaptation
• As personality evolves into adolescence and
young adulthood, the self coalesces into three
parts:
(1) the compromised (“false”) self;
(2) the non-compromised (“true”) self;
(3) the part of the true self that was not
given the opportunity to develop (“the
lost self”).
22
23. The Self in Adulthood
• The False Self
• The True Self
• The Lost Self
23
24. The False Self
• The evolutionary (survival) genes in our DNA
are so strong that we are programmed to
adapt (the compromised, false self is
activated) over and over again, resulting in the
false self becoming habituated.
• The compromised (false) self centers around
a major traumatic relational theme.
• The false is stronger and predominates over
the true and the lost parts of the self.
24
25. Our Personality as Adults
• At the core of our personality as adults is a
highly adaptive child (if the adaptation worked
early on, we repeat it again and again across
our life span).
25
26. Part III: A Psychodynamic View of How We
Fall in Love
26
27. The Standard View of Romantic
Relationships
• Attraction/ “chemistry”
• We just understand each other/we seem to
know each other
• Common interests
• Similar background/values
27
28. The De-evolution of Relationships
• Dating
• Sex (often intense and passionate at the beginning)
• Commitment
• The relationship evolves
• Things change in comparison to how they were in the
beginning
• Unresolved conflict or avoidance of conflict
• “We grew apart”
• Infidelity
• Crisis drives a wedge between the two persons
28
29. Typical Reactions to the Failed
Relationship
• I could not have predicted how things would
go ...
• What attracted me to him/her turned out to
annoy and frustrate me ...
• My needs were not fulfilled ...
• We lost interest in each other ... couldn’t keep
it fresh ... became bored with each other ....
29
31. Attraction
• Attraction/chemistry is usually based on
“baggage.”
• We are attracted to those people who hold the
potential to hurt us as we have been hurt before
(our original relational trauma).
• The person we see “registers” something in our
brains ... we find them familiar, yet we don’t
understand why.
• We are driven to bond to the persons most likely
to re-traumatize us.
31
32. Why seek to be re-traumatized?
• No one knows.
• Evolution: what is familiar is chosen over that
which would challenge us to develop new
adaptations or jettison the adaptations we have
grown accustomed to using.
• Correcting the original relational trauma: we
may believe that if we re-create the original
trauma of our development through the
creation of a parental-surrogate in
contemporary life, we can finally overcome or
solve the original trauma.
32
33. The Two Types of Relational Trauma
Type I: The Original Relational Trauma of Early Life
• It is inevitable that we get relationally injured
early in development.
• This original trauma stays stored within us.
• In adult life, we are “programmed” to repeat the
original trauma (1: our aura communicates it to
others, and 2: we induce/project others to
become parental surrogates) – in essence, we
are motivated to create a transference neurosis!
33
34. The Two Types of Relational Trauma
Type II: Relational Trauma of Adult Life
• We all get hurt in adult romantic relationships.
• In an effort to not get hurt again, we may:
(1) Do a cross-over: become our past partner;
our current partner becomes ourselves in the
previous relationship
(2) Sabotage the relationship
(3) Withdraw from the emotionality of the
relationship
34
35. Our “Selection” of a Partner
• We are not really selecting our partner, as the
partner (and how we relate to them) is pre-
determined by trauma of Types I and/or II.
• The partner is selected (NOT CHOSEN) by
unconscious factors – we simply cannot help
it!!!
• The relationship is destined to fail and usually
does!
35
36. Repetition
• Some version of the past is always
being repeated in the present.
• The amount of repetition is determined by the
amount of the previous traumas that remains
unresolved.
• “We are doomed to repeat what we do not
remember”(Freud); in contemporary
psychodynamic psychology, repetitive
processes are called “enactments.”
36
37. Enactments
• A majority of human interactions are nothing more than
enactments.
• A good way to think about enactments is that Person A
acts/behaves in ways that begin to constrict the bandwidth
of relatedness Person B generates back toward Person A
(this is “induction”).
• Example
• Over time, the bandwidth is narrowed to such an extent
that Person A falsely assumes or actually creates a situation
in which he/she is “traumatized” by Person B.
• In essence, Person B is unconsciously recruited to
perpetrate upon/traumatize Person A (THUS AFFIRMING
THE CONTENT OF THE INTROJECT).
37
39. If induction takes a foothold, ....
• Things typically devolve, quickly or gradually.
• But in any “normal” relationship, induction
will (and must) take place.
• The trick is to not let it get out of hand – if it
does, both partners enact and are no longer
“real” persons with each other.
• The key idea is to attempt to maintain (in
yourself and in the other) the widest
bandwidth of relatedness as possible.
39
40. How This All Happens in Our Romantic
Worlds
• What I’ve just told you captures the process of
how we meet someone new, become
attracted to them, start dating them, form a
relationship with them, ... with ultimately
(more often than not) the relationship
blowing up and dissolving.
• There are 6 stages to this process:
40
41. What makes the guy pick girl #2 ?
1 2 3
Stage 1: Attraction
41
42. Our guy thinks the selection of #2 is the
dominating attraction commonly called
“chemistry.”
1 2 3
42
43. Our guy thinks the selection of #2 is the dominating attraction
commonly called “chemistry.”
It is NOT!!!
NEVER!!!
1 2 3
43
44. What he mistakes as “chemistry” are
interpersonal/neurobiologic cues, i.e.,
what is “familiar!”
1 2 3
44
46. Stage 2: The Honeymoon Period
• Things seem to be going well: they start doing more and
more together, they find they have things in common,
etc.
• There is the sense that it is easy/that they seem to
“know” each other better than what would be expected
given the amount of time they have spent together.
• Sex often occurs in this stage and is “very passionate.”
• The unconscious relational structure that each holds
lays dormant/is hibernating and not yet apparent.
46
47. Stage 3: Induction
• In our example, the man unconsciously
“induces” the woman to act more and more
like his wounding parent (or his mental
construction of his wounding parent).
• The woman is already primed to act this way
(contains qualities consistent with the man’s
wounding parent), but his inductions activate
the similarities in her even more so that they
become more dramatic and manifested.
47
48. Stage 4: Injury and Repair
• Each partner starts injuring the other (in ways that are
familiar, i.e., in the ways that caregivers injured them
during childhood).
• During this phase, the bond between the two actually
gets stronger as each tries to “calm down” and “make
up”; the other feels so important and familiar that the
underlying dysfunction of the relationship is denied by
one or both partners.
48
49. Stage 4: Injury and Repair
• Co-habitation and/or marriage often occur
during this stage, particularly during or right
after “repair” periods in which there is a
profound sense of relief and euphoria (there is
often the internal fantasy of having finally
found one’s “soul mate” or finally having
moved past what went “wrong” in prior
relationships).
49
50. Stage 5: Parasitic Take-Over
• Through ongoing inductions and the accumulation of
repeated injuries, repair becomes less and less
frequent and merely partial.
• The partner becomes the parental-surrogate (AND
THEN SOME!!).
• The partner is overtaken by mysterious forces
(parasitic psychological communications) of which
he/she is no longer in control of; he or she actually
becomes “alien” to himself/herself; the partner
becomes something else/ “not themselves” the
more the relationship goes on. 50
51. Stage 6: Break-up
• Due to repeated
inductions and the
parasitic take-over
process, one partner
eventually decides to end
the relationship (due to
guilt/shame at injuring
their partner over and
over again or due to no
longer feeling like
himself/herself – “alien”
– with their partner).
51
52. Repeating the Pattern
• Most people repeat the same, or a similar pattern,
over and over again in consecutive relationships (this is
the phenomenon of serial monogamy and multiple
divorces).
• Avoiding the pattern is a psychological alternative to
repeating the pattern.
• This alternative has been described in research as the
“avoidant” attachment type and can take many forms:
(a) men (or women) who just want superficial
relationships/sex
(b) the self-sabotager (addiction, infidelity)
(c) business/financial success (workaholics)
(d) or the indecisive/obsessive personality
52
53. Implications for Romantic Love
• As adults, we are destined to continue our
adaptive patterns with our next significant
attachment figure (our lover/partner).
• That is, we seek to find a lover who resembles
our caregiver (psychologically, emotionally) so
that we can continue with our usual adaptive
style to maintain the attachment.
• This implies something very paradoxical: we are
destined to seek a romantic partner (and a
“relational structure”) that wounds us in
familiar ways!
53
54. The Dissolution of the Relationship
• When the parental-surrogate is embodied in
our partner, conflict/distress occurs and is
often (1) tolerated/lived with for many years,.
and/or (2) causes break-up/divorce.
• Our (unconscious) hope to resolve the wounds
from our past in our contemporary partner
usually fails! (AND, we remain unknown to
ourselves and to the other).
54
55. Part IV: The Emerging Field of Interpersonal
Neurobiology
55
57. The Emergence of a New Field:
Interpersonal Neurobiology
The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the
Cultivation of Well-Being
DANIEL J. SIEGEL
The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment And
the Developing Social Brain
LOUIS COZOLINO
The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of
Chronic Traumatization
ONNO VAN DER HART, ELLERT R. S. NIJENHUIS, KATHY
STEELE
57
58. Interpersonal Neurobiology
Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self & Affect
Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self
ALLAN N. SCHORE
Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self
ALLAN N. SCHORE
Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self
ALLAN N. SCHORE
Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body and Brain
DANIEL J. SIEGEL, MARION SOLOMON
58
59. Interpersonal Neurobiology
Love and War in Intimate Relationships: Connection, Disconnection, and
Mutual Regulation in Couple Therapy
MARION SOLOMON, STAN TATKIN
The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain
LOUIS COZOLINO
From Axons to Identity: Neurological Explorations of the Nature of the Self
TODD E. FEINBERG
Infant/Child Mental Health, Early Intervention, and Relationship-Based
Therapies: A Neurorelational Framework for Interdisciplnary Practice
CONNIE LILLAS, JANIECE TURNBULL
59
60. Interpersonal Neurobiology
Healing the Traumatized Self: Consciousness, Neuroscience,
Treatment
PAUL FREWEN, RUTH LANIUS, BESSEL VAN DER KOLK, ET AL.
Neurobiologically Informed Trauma Therapy with Children and
Adolescents: Understanding Mechanisms of Change
LINDA CHAPMAN
Loving with the Brain in Mind: Neurobiology and Couple
Therapy
MONA DEKOVEN FISHBANE, DANIEL J. SIEGEL
60
61. Interpersonal Neurobiology
Body Sense: The Science and Practice of Embodied Self-
Awareness
ALAN FOGEL
The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of
Human Emotions
JAAK PANKSEPP, LUCY BIVEN
Brain-Based Parenting: The Neuroscience of Caregiving
for Healthy Attachment
DANIEL A. HUGHES, JONATHAN BAYLIN, DANIEL J. SIEGEL
61
63. “Aura”
• Our brains and bodies put forth a series of
complex, nonverbal and unconscious
communications that are “read” by others.
63
64. “Aura”
• We see something similar in the animal kingdom,
where the weakest animal in a pack is sensed,
identified and hunted (survival of the fittest).
• In humans, it’s a bit different: the aura promotes
our survival by cuing others to traumatize us so
that we can maintain our adaptations
(conversely, if others were cued to promote our
true or lost selves, we would be threatened and
great anxiety would ensue).
64
65. This is the Central Component of the
Therapeutic Relationship or any Intimate Bond
• The patient is programmed to adapt (use a
facade or adapt to an actual or assumed
trauma) vs. have his/her true self or lost self
acknowledged.
• The therapist promotes the true and the lost
over the facade, just as a lover senses his/her
partner’s anxiety about living without
trauma (and preference for maintaining a
compromised/false self).
65
66. Implications
• Our compromised (false) self must be
gradually reduced in intensity and power
(what has become so familiar is suddenly
strange).
• This occurs in part by discovering how we
falsely assume the potential to be injured and
also how we induce others (and are induced)
so that we end up becoming re-traumatized.
66
67. Implications
• It also occurs by realizing the nature of our
relational traumas and how we managed
them at a primitive level.
• The aura of our relationally traumatic past will
never fully disappear so we must understand
in detail how people are likely to “view” us.
• By doing this, there are ways to interfere with
the aura.
67
68. James Tobin, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist, PSY 22074
220 Newport Center Drive, Suite 1
Newport Beach, CA 92660
949-338-4388
Email: jt@jamestobinphd.com
Website: www.jamestobinphd.com