Lisa Wallner Samstag

Long Island University | LIU · Department of Psychology (Brooklyn)

This integrative review is focused on a formulation of therapeutic empathy. We describe the “empathic dialectic” as therapists’ capacity to emotionally resonate with patients’ internal states, such as during ruptures, and to coregulate their own and the patients’ states through mentalization. The first aim was to provide a theoretical framework for...

This commentary highlights common principles shared across the diverse clinical case examples featured in this In Session issue on Rupture Repair in Practice. We discuss the importance of therapists recognizing subtle signs of rupture and responding to ruptures with curiosity and compassion. We also consider how therapists can use repair strategies...

In this introduction to this issue on Rupture–Repair in Practice, we present our understanding of alliance ruptures using common language to appeal to all theoretical orientations. Specifically, we define withdrawal movements away from another or oneself (efforts towards isolation or appeasement) and confrontation movements against another (efforts...

After reviewing the literature on therapeutic empathy, we propose the concept of an empathic dialectic, marked by the therapists’ capacity to shift between states of emotional resonance and co-regulation. We then draw on this conceptualization of therapeutic empathy, in order to provide recommendations, which can be referenced by psychotherapists a...

The current study is based on the notion of an empathic dialectic, marked by states of emotional resonance and regula-tion, which has been described by contemporary theories of therapeutic empathy and empirically supported by research on non-therapists. We operationalized emotional resonance as personal distress empathy, and we sought to examine ho...

Background: Empirical evidence suggests that individuals who have experienced the death of a parent early in life endorse interpersonal difficulties in adulthood. However, little is known about the underlying experiences that may lead to such distress. The current study examined whether individuals who experienced early parental death would endors...

Jeremy D. Safran’s contributions to our understanding of the complexities of the therapeutic relationship, and its role in the process of patient change in psychotherapy, have been profound. In this paper, we briefly summarize the evolution of his thinking about the alliance and highlight how his ambivalence about this construct contributed to his...

A naturalistic sample of N 17 trainee therapists treating N 30 patients in a psychodynamic doctoral training program was evaluated from a discovery-oriented perspective, inspired by the task analytic work of Jeremy D. Safran. A number of research results support the efficacy of integrative treatments, such as Safran's metatherapeutic approach to wo...

The context-free diagnoses outlined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders might not provide enough information to represent the heterogeneity observed in depressed patients. Interpersonal factors have been linked to depression in a mutually influencing pathoplastic relationship where certain problems, like submissiveness, are...

The authors describe "solitude theory," a "lonely" branch of psychological research and theory, at present cut off from reigning contemporary viewpoints, in particular attachment theory. After presenting the history and present state of solitude theory, the authors argue that the seeming contradictions between solitude theory and attachment-centere...

Provides a reanalysis of data provided by G. Silberschatz et al (1986), who developed a method to assess the compatibility between an interpretation and a patient's psychology, and demonstrated that this factor—plan compatibility—may contribute to an interpretation's effect. In their reassessing of the data the authors demonstrate that raters can r...

This introduction provides an overview of the special section on ethical issues in clinical writing. A summary of the complex issues presented by the author of the lead article (Barbara Sieck), and the four authors who were invited to respond to the paper (Jeffrey Barnett, Mark Blechner, Constance Fischer, and Susan Woodhouse), is followed by a cri...

Introduces several commentaries on an article by U. Dinger et al (see record 200913603-002) entitled "Therapists' attachment, patients' interpersonal problems and alliance development over time in inpatient psychotherapy." This article represents an ambitious effort on the part of the researchers to map a number of interrelated relational variables...

This study examined the relationship of early alliance ruptures and their resolution to process and outcome in a sample of 128 patients randomly assigned to 1 of 3 time-limited psychotherapies for personality disorders: cognitive-behavioral therapy, brief relational therapy, or short-term dynamic psychotherapy. Rupture intensity and resolution were...

This study examines the cultural and socioeconomic differences in the regulation strategies of Euro-American and Turkish mothers. Participants are interviewed about how they would manage their children's problem behaviors under hypothetical scenarios. American mothers are found to rely more extensively on appeals to their own authority and on rules...

The paper provides a commentary on two qualitative case studies of therapist use of immediacy in two brief interpersonal psychotherapies involving two senior White male clinicians and two young female patients with diverse identities (Hill et al., 2008; see record 2008-13167-001; Kaspar, Hill, & Kivlighan, 2008; see record 2008-13167-002). The comm...

The aim of this study was to investigate the interrelationships of three measures of the therapeutic relationship and their validity in predicting treatment outcome, including the early identification of two treatment-failure conditions. Forty-eight patient-therapist dyads, in 30-session therapies for personality-disordered patients, were classifie...

Carl Rogers' article (see record 2007-14639-002) on the necessary and sufficient conditions for personality change has had a significant impact on the field of psychotherapy and psychotherapy research. He emphasized the client as arbiter of his or her own subjective experience and tested his hypothesized therapist-offered conditions of change using...

Considered in this special section on the working alliance is the current role and place of the construct in psychotherapy theory, research, practice, and training. This overview briefly summarizes the six articles included in the volume and highlights a number of issues relevant to the working alliance, such as the ubiquity of the alliance in psyc...

This article describes a pilot study evaluating the feasibility of an ap-proach developed to test the efficacy of a therapeutic intervention (brief rela-tional therapy) for patients with whom it is difficult to establish a therapeutic alliance. In the first phase of the study, 60 patients were randomly assigned to either short-term dynamic therapy...

This paper presents a study with the aim of evaluating the relative efficacy of an alliance-focused treatment, brief relational therapy, in comparison to a short-term dynamic therapy and a cognitive-behavioral therapy on a sample of highly comorbid personality disordered patients. Results indicated that the three treatments were equally effective o...

Many students enter graduate programs with little or no experience of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Efforts to impart clinical skills have often been less than systematic and beginning psychotherapists have not always been encouraged to think about what they are doing and why they are doing it from a scientific standpoint. Thoughtfully building on...

This book is the result of the American Psychological Association's Division of Psychotherapy (Div. 29) Task Force aimed at applying psychological science to the identification and promulgation of effective psychotherapy. Many efforts to improve therapy have focused on codifying evidence-based treatments, but in doing so have left the psychotherape...

The common vs unique factors paradigm adopted in psychotherapy research has been considered a problematic solution to the study of complex therapeutic relationships and comparisons among different forms of treatments. As the author suggests, this research paradigm may reflect a misinterpretation of the general factors and processes that S. Rosenzwe...

The common vs unique factors paradigm adopted in psychotherapy research has been considered a problematic solution to the study of complex therapeutic relationships and comparisons among different forms of treatments. As the author suggests, this research paradigm may reflect a misinterpretation of the general factors and processes that S. Rosenzwe...

Increasingly, research on the therapeutic alliance has shifted its focus to clarifying the factors contributing to alliance development, including the processes involved in resolving alliance ruptures. This article provides a brief review of the empirical literature on ruptures in the alliance and their resolution or repair. In sum, the research is...

This article presents an integrated conception of the self based on cognitive and interpersonal theories. Implications for clinical practice are outlined, which include understanding the therapeutic relationship as a laboratory and change as involving self-expansion. Implications for clinical research are also presented and exemplified by two strat...

Patients with dysthymia have been shown to respond to treatment with antidepressant medications, and to some degree to psychotherapy. Even patients successfully treated with medication often have residual symptoms and impaired psychosocial functioning. The authors describe a prospective randomized 36-week study of dysthymic patients, comparing cont...

Interpersonal Scenarios involve the construction and use of idiographic vignettes to assess the self in an interpersonal context. Constructed from a semistructured clinical interview, these scenarios represent prototypical patterns of how individuals interact with others when at their best and worst. They can be rated by patients on seven parameter...

Early sessions of patients categorized as dropouts (n = 25), good outcome (n = 28), and poor outcome (n = 20) completers of a 40-session protocol of short-term psychotherapy were compared to determine predictive validity of in-session measures of therapeutic alliance and interpersonal behavior (Working Alliance Inventory, Session Evaluation Questio...

The authors report preliminary results of Brief Supportive Psychotherapy (BSP) in the Beth Israel Brief Psychotherapy Program for a sample with primarily Cluster C Axis II disorders. This study compares 24 patients treated with BSP with 25 patients treated with Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (STDP). STDP was chosen because its confrontational met...

Based on increasing recognition that the therapeutic relationship is critical in psychotherapy, the goal of this study was to establish the psychometric properties of a suboutcome strategy that could identify important in-session events involving patient-therapist interactions. Ten third-party observers were calibrated on a circumplex measure of su...

1. The objective was to assess long-term efficacy of antidepressant medications in dysthymia. 2. In a naturalistic study, patients with DSMIII-R dysthymia who had participated in previous antidepressant trials with fluoxetine and trazodone were evaluated at a mean of 40.0 weeks of follow-up to assess whether medication response persisted over time....

To better understand the mechanisms of change in psychotherapy, it is important to validate suboutcome measures that represent intermediate links between more molecular in-session changes and ultimate outcome. The present study involved the collection of pre- and postsession ratings from 53 patients in a 20-session protocol of cognitive therapy, wh...

To better understand the mechanisms of change in psychotherapy, it is important to validate suboutcome measures that represent intermediate links between more molecular in-session changes and ultimate outcome. The present study involved the collection of pre- and postsession ratings from 53 patients in a 20-session protocol of cognitive therapy, wh...

Studied patient defensive behavior and therapist addressing defense (TAD) in short-term dynamic psychotherapy and brief adaptive psychotherapy in 28 adult patients with personality disorders. Three levels of patient defense (immature, intermediate, and mature) were coded. Only intermediate defensive behavior such as intellectualization and rational...

In 1989 New York State extended regulation of controlled substances to benzodiazepines. To study the effects on patients, the authors examined characteristics of patients who came to a psychiatric outpatient clinic seeking benzodiazepines during the year after the regulation took effect. Demographic and clinical characteristics of 44 patients who s...

The efficacy of short-term psychotherapy has become an area of increasing interest. The primary objective of this study was to assess the results of two forms of short-term psychotherapy in patients with personality disorders. Eighty-one patients with personality disorders were randomly assigned to brief adaptive psychotherapy, short-term dynamic p...

As the role of self-representation has begun to figure more prominently in clinical theories of emotional disorder, a number of assessment methodologies have been developed to measure this construct. This report describes the construction and use of self-scenarios, an idiographic interview-based measure of self-schemas. Self-scenarios depict highly...

1. There is increasing evidence that many patients with major depression also have coexisting dysthymia, and that antidepressant treatment may alleviate both conditions. 2. Open-label study of fluoxetine and trazodone for 18 patients meeting DSM-III-R criteria for concurrent dysthymia and major depression. 3. Fourteen patients completed three-month...

The growing consensus regarding the importance of interpersonal process in psychotherapy, as well as of interpersonal factors in self-definition, has underscored the relevance of examining patient interpersonal functioning as it relates to the development of the therapeutic alliance. This study examined the relationship of patient pretreatment inte...

The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of fluoxetine, a selective serotonergic antidepressant, in the treatment of dysthymia. Thirty-five patients who met criteria for dysthymia, but not major depression, began randomized, double-blind 8-week trials of fluoxetine or placebo. Of 32 patients who completed the study, 10 (62.5%) of the 16...

In the current study, the development and initial validation of the Suitability for Short-Term Cognitive Therapy (SSCT) interview procedure is reported. The SSCT is an interview and rating procedure designed to evaluate the potential appropriateness of patients for short-term cognitive therapy with an interpersonal focus. It consists of a 1-hour, s...

There is increasing evidence that antidepressants may alleviate symptoms of dysthymia, but few prior studies on selective serotonergic agents. Twenty patients meeting criteria for dysthymia, but not meeting criteria for major depression, received open label trials of a serotonergic antidepressant, either fluoxetine or trazodone. Seventeen (85%) com...

University Microfilms order no. 9908358. Thesis (Ph. D.)--City University of New York, 1998. Includes bibliographical references.