Upcoming Talk on March 20, 2014

In this presentation, I will describe my view of the therapeutic space as an atypical reality in which the therapist must gradually draw the patient into an experience of the self unencumbered by social censorship and attachment conventions.  This transition is perhaps the most significant yet often under-emphasized component of the clinical encounter. The patient, harboring a lifetime of accommodating responses to important caregivers and the world at large, is portrayed as a conflicted, suppressed and/or interrupted identity who must tolerate the therapist's subversion of social convention.  The anxiety this causes in the patient is ideally counteracted by the therapist's persona, a humble, consistent presence and way of being that approaches the patient non-narcissistically.  As treatment proceeds, the transactional quality of human relatedness gradually gives way to the therapist's facilitation of the patient's creative expression, enhanced self-experience, and capacity to mourn.  This view of the therapeutic process is especially applicable to the training and supervision of early-career clinicians who struggle with unrefined assumptions about helping the patient and adhering to social convention in order to promote the therapeutic alliance.  This talk will be held on Thursday, March 20, 12:00 to 1:00 PM at the American School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University in Orange.  For more details, consult the website of the Orange County Psychological Association.