María Elisa Molina

• PhD.
• Managing Director at Universidad del Desarrollo

Psychotherapy, as a cultural activity, faces the challenge of adapting to historical changes and emerging issues. In this article, a multilevel approach to psychotherapeutic intervention that encompasses the individual, relational, and contextual dimensions is proposed. The approach is based on an historical-cultural theoretical framework that inte...

The mirror is a very widespread tool in human life. It works as an optical device that recreates the image of an object placed in front of it. The relation of the human being with the mirror is very important: we find a pervasive-ness and diffusion of mirrors in everyday life, but also in stories and legends, in folklore and mythology. At a certain...

This article develops a theoretical model about the trajectories and transitions of thought from a perspective of semiotic cultural psychology. An integration between the inner speech theory, concept formation, and dialogical self theory was done to explore the particularity of thought transitions. It is concluded that the thought transits in a ver...

This article reports the results of an investigation that used a mixed methodology with microgenetic orientation, to observe the genetic development of small acts of thought and their bodily manifestations. A qualitative design was carried out through a videographic record with 10 participants to explore thought trajectories and their genetic unfol...

The present article understands clinical supervision as a sociocultural practice that concerns the construction of meanings and relationships in the field of family therapy, by means of which learning and transformation emerge. This process takes three modalities: the narrative, the live supervision, and the scene supervision, with different aims....

The article explores the phenomenon of transition in a particular human passage, which entails two affective processes, the experience of parenting and the transformation of the couple's bond. Transition is analyzed as a field of self-movements and transitional-field-of-the-abject (Hermans and Hermans- Konopka 2010) where new self-positions are co-...

This article presents the results of a theoretical investigation that aimed to develop a comprehensive model regarding the phenomenon of imagination and private speech as liminal experiences of consciousness. A theoretical articulation between the phenomena was developed to explain how imagination and private speech allow to make sense in the limin...

The purpose of this article was exploring the role of discursive and non-discursive symbolization - specifically gestures - in the negotiation of differences in couples´ interactions. Five married heterosexual couples were invited to hold a conversation about an unsolved problem in their relationship. A videographic analysis was carried out to expl...

Inzicht krijgen in relatiepatronen is een belangrijke doelstelling van relatietherapie, en een hulpmiddel voor verandering. Met de methodologie van het Gezamenlijk Relationeel Tekenproces (Conjoint Relational Drawing Process, CRDP) wordt gebruik gemaakt van een tekentechniek die relationele patronen zichtbaar maakt. CRDP is speciaal ontwikkeld voor...

The consultants’ observation and understanding of relational patterns in couples therapy is a main therapeutic objective and a resource for change. The Conjoint Relational Drawing Process (CRDP) methodology uses a drawing technique to enable the display and efficient observation of relational patterns. It was designed to address the relational proc...

A study of temporality in human encounters and specifically in amorous relationships is presented. The article aims to analyze subjective and experiential time, focusing on the relationships and the difficulties involved. A review of the theoretical and phenomenological understanding of temporality that gives rise to the Chronogenesis model is made...

El artículo presenta un estudio sobre momentos de debilitamiento del vínculo paciente – terapeuta, ocurridos en el curso del diálogo terapéutico. Se focalizó en momentos del proceso de construcción de significados entre paciente y terapeuta calificados según el criterio de jueces como de debilitamiento del vínculo terapéutico en un proceso psicoana...

The 31st International Congress of Psychology: Diversity in Harmony_Insights from Psychology. The Yokohama Manifesto. July, 2016. Yokohama, Japón.

This article focuses on dialogic discursive dynamics present in couples' conversations about unresolved conflicts. The phenomenon of conflict is addressed as a semiotically mediated process of co-construction of the self and the relationship. The purpose of this article is to report on patterns of meaning construction in couples' conflict, with the...

The article discusses deconceptualization of human passionate love from historical, cultural, and psychological approaches. From these contexts, people have constructed and deconstructed the meanings of love with confusion and ambivalence. This fuzziness has lead to variability in social and family interplay, even in intimate lives. A tension of me...

El propósito del estudio es explorar la temporalidad como tiempo vivencial en las relaciones de pareja y terapéuticas. Apoyándose en aportes teóricos de Henri Bergson y Heidegger se considera el tiempo como integrado a la vivencia en torno a sí mismo y la experiencia, lo cual implica disposiciones, modos de ser y estar en el mundo, que son relevant...

This study approaches human encounter and the meaning construction that it unfolds, from a dialogical and micro-process perspective. Considering Valsiner's proposal (2007) a semiotic approach is taken. A Protocol of Analysis is proposed, which describes indicators that regulate the process. Moments of therapeutic dialogue with mothers of sexually a...

The term gridlock describes the occurrence of rigid patterns in couples’ conflict. This study aimed to describe strategies of conflict resolution and gridlock prevention from the perspectives of couples and couple therapists. Participants were couple therapists and highly adjusted couples scored by the dyadic adjustment scale (DAS), distributed acc...

The adaptation and validation of a Chilean Spanish version of the State Trait Cheerfulness Inventory (STCI-T-60) including a couple evaluation, is presented. The inventory was developed by Ruch (1990) to measure three traits (cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood), considered to enable exhilaration, which is the main indicator of the sense of hum...

The first interview more than a conversation for information, is an encounter for the purpose of promoting the formation of a therapeutic intersubjective and triadic system. Its focus is the experience lived in that encounter, as a here-now emergency. Building a therapeutic system is to create a link based on empathy and awareness. The encounter de...

The first interview more than a conversation for information, is an encounter for the purpose of promoting the formation of a therapeutic intersubjective and triadic system. Its focus is the experience lived in that encounter, as a here-now emergency. Building a therapeutic system is to create a link based on empathy and awareness. The encounter de...

El artículo aborda el estudio de la relación terapéutica desde una perspectiva dialógica y de micro-proceso. El propósito del estudio es describir esta dinámica, en la experiencia en curso, su proceso de construcción y su relación con la elaboración psicológica llevada a cabo. El objeto de estudio son intercambios verbales, observados a través de a...

This article deals with the study of therapeutic relation from a dialogical and micro-level perspective. The aim is to describe this dynamics of the ongoing experience, its construction and its relationship with the psychological elaboration that takes place. The verbal interchanges observed through semiotic analysis are the study object. The artic...

The challenges of contemporary couples have taken the identity and sense of the self as the cornerstone of the co-construction of the “we-ness”. Men and women are subject to new demands of affectivity and emotional intimacy, while they are tensioned by traditional gender roles. The separation between reproduction and sexual desire, in addition, est...

Couples live a quest for identity and sense in a scenario of certainty and empirical testing that feeds illusions of control and stability. Partners’ commitment involves illusory assurances, avoiding the possibility of the uncertainty of life and death. However, love and desire are nuclei of sense emergence in the couple, but they run off when the...

Reavey and Brown (2009), in their article ‘The Mediating Role of Objects in Recollections of Adult Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse’, make an interesting review of recollections of child abuse episodes in four women. They intend to give an account, in terms of agency, responsibility and integrity, of reports of past traumatic experiences in wh...

This book has taken up the challenge to reflect on new paths to develop research methods in psychology and social sciences. Moreover—it also leads us to the clinical field. We can consider psychotherapy as an ongoing process of meaningful exchange between interlocutors—therapist and patient—that takes place in the here-and-now time frame. Of course...

The study approaches adolescent behavior toward disagreement with parents, combining expression of disagreement and obedience and considering its relation with well-being dimensions such as adolescent's perception of own competence, self-esteem and aggressive behavior. One thousand six hundred seventy eight Chilean high school students answered a q...

Therapy can be considered as a dialogue in which an ongoing process is portrayed between I-positions of therapist and client displayed at a certain moment. This dialogue can be analyzed focusing on the simultaneity of I-positions that participate and focusing on sequential presentation of I-positions and its evolving therapeutic exchange. In an att...

This is a reflection on Tine Jensen’s article ‘The Interpretation of Signs of Child Sexual Abuse’ (2005) and Robert Innis’s considerations ‘The Sign of Interpretation’ (2005). The article considers first the theoretical consequences of temporality as irreversible flow in meaning making and its relative stability as a narrative. Second, it focuses o...

The conceptualization of motherhood has a historical development, particularly related with woman's image and childrearing ideas. This article attempts to review specific issues in this process and discusses constrains and possibilities for further construction of this notion at the present. The transformations of this concept through human history...

Introducción: La madre de un niño que ha sufrido abuso sexual tiene un rol complejo tanto en el fenómeno del abuso del hijo como en la reparación psicológica posterior. Con el propósito de establecer la relación entre experiencias de abuso sexual infantil a través de las generaciones, se exploraron aspectos de las historias de madres que pueden est...

Introduction: The article describes the activities of a workshop that addresses the therapist as a person, by way of developing interpersonal skills in therapeutic work. This activity takes place during training of Psychological and Psychiatric trainees conducted in a Pediatric Hospital. Methodology: The work is accomplished through the theoretical...

Introduction: The article describes the activities of a workshop that addresses the therapist as a person, by way of developing interpersonal skills in therapeutic work. This activity takes place during training of Psychological and Psychiatric trainees conducted in a Pediatric Hospital. Methodology: The work is accomplished through the theoretical...

We report a 12 year old girl that first consulted for fever with bilateral knee arthralgias. A neurological workout was started due to a progressive gait disturbance, but all results were incongruent with nerve or nerve root lesions, leading to the diagnosis of a functional paralysis. The patient worsened to the point of prostration. Due to the sus...

We report a 12 year old girl that first consulted for fever with bilateral knee arthralgias. A neurological workout was started due to a progressive gait disturbance, but all results were incongruent with nerve or nerve root lesions, leading to the diagnosis of a functional paralysis. The patient worsened to the point of prostration. Due to the sus...

We report a 12 year old girl that first consulted for fever with bilateral knee artbralgias, A neurological workout was started due to a progressive gait disturbance, but all results were incongruent with nerve or nerve root lesions, leading to the diagnosis of a functional paralysis. The patient worsened to the point of prostration. Due to the sus...

Esta comunicación pretende mostrar un caso de Munchausen-por-poder que se presentó en un hospital de Santiago, planteando un importante desafío al equipo médico. El artículo intenta hacer una reflexión en torno a la problemática que generan estos casos que constituyen una forma de abuso físico muy elaborada y finamente perversa. Se realiza una defi...