Series: Connections and Conversation
Connections and Conversation created and hosted by Shir Shanun, Psy.D. is a psychoanalytic open space for cultivating creativity and freedom of thought and feeling in a free Zoom meeting. We invite you to engage with our presenters and community as they share their interests and passions in conversation on current topics in psychoanalysis. Please see our calendar of events. The meeting often begins with a 45 minute presentation followed by 45 minutes of conversation. When an event is recorded you can access the recording at the vault.
This series is open to all.
In case of questions please contact: [email protected]
“Conflict Statements”: Leveraging the Patient’s Anxiety to Incentivize Transformation and Growth – Martha Stark, MD
September 21, 2023 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm PDT
If deep and enduring psychodynamic change is the ultimate goal of treatment, then periodically juxtaposing seemingly contradictory “forces” (Hegel’s thesis and antithesis) will eventually jump-start the patient’s “adaptive recovery” by creating optimally stressful, growth-incentivizing “mismatch experiences.”
I will be proposing use of something to which I refer as a “conflict statement” – a clinically useful and almost universally applicable therapeutic intervention strategically designed to target the patient’s internal conflictedness between anxiety-provoking (but ultimately growth-promoting) forces pressing “yes” and anxiety-relieving (but growth-impeding) resistant counterforces defending “no.”
The stress and strain of the “destabilizing dissonance” thereby created will provide the “therapeutic leverage” needed for the patient gradually, over time, to relinquish the tenacity of her rigid attachment to the defense in favor of a more flexible adaptation – a “compromise position” that will “reconcile common truths” (Hegel’s synthesis) and transform conflict into collaboration.
The strategic construction of conflict statements requires of the therapist that she be able both to support the patient’s defense by “being with the patient where she is” and to challenge the patient’s defense by “directing the patient’s attention to where the therapist would want her to go.” I will be offering specific clinical examples to demonstrate these powerfully impactful, optimally stressful psychotherapeutic interventions. No pain, no gain…
Presenter
Martha Stark, MD
Martha Stark, MD, a graduate of Harvard Medical School and the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, is a holistic (adult and child) psychiatrist and integrative psychoanalyst in private practice in Boston, MA. She is on the Faculty at Harvard Medical School and is Co-Founder / Co-Director of the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies at William James College.
Martha is an award-winning author of 9 highly acclaimed books (including Relentless Hope: The Refusal to Grieve) on the integration of psychodynamic theory with clinical practice – several of which have become “required reading” in psychoanalytic training institutes and psychodynamic psychotherapy programs in the US and abroad. Martha is the Originator / Developer of the Psychodynamic Synergy Paradigm: A C.A.R.E. Approach to Deep Healing.
Series: Connections and Conversation
Connections and Conversation created and hosted by Shir Shanun, Psy.D. is a psychoanalytic open space for cultivating creativity and freedom of thought and feeling in a free Zoom meeting. We invite you to engage with our presenters and community as they share their interests and passions in conversation on current topics in psychoanalysis. Please see our calendar of events. The meeting often begins with a 45 minute presentation followed by 45 minutes of conversation. When an event is recorded you can access the recording at the vault.
This series is open to all.
In case of questions please contact: [email protected]
“Conflict Statements”: Leveraging the Patient’s Anxiety to Incentivize Transformation and Growth – Martha Stark, MD
September 21, 2023 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm PDT
If deep and enduring psychodynamic change is the ultimate goal of treatment, then periodically juxtaposing seemingly contradictory “forces” (Hegel’s thesis and antithesis) will eventually jump-start the patient’s “adaptive recovery” by creating optimally stressful, growth-incentivizing “mismatch experiences.”
I will be proposing use of something to which I refer as a “conflict statement” – a clinically useful and almost universally applicable therapeutic intervention strategically designed to target the patient’s internal conflictedness between anxiety-provoking (but ultimately growth-promoting) forces pressing “yes” and anxiety-relieving (but growth-impeding) resistant counterforces defending “no.”
The stress and strain of the “destabilizing dissonance” thereby created will provide the “therapeutic leverage” needed for the patient gradually, over time, to relinquish the tenacity of her rigid attachment to the defense in favor of a more flexible adaptation – a “compromise position” that will “reconcile common truths” (Hegel’s synthesis) and transform conflict into collaboration.
The strategic construction of conflict statements requires of the therapist that she be able both to support the patient’s defense by “being with the patient where she is” and to challenge the patient’s defense by “directing the patient’s attention to where the therapist would want her to go.” I will be offering specific clinical examples to demonstrate these powerfully impactful, optimally stressful psychotherapeutic interventions. No pain, no gain…
Presenter
Martha Stark, MD
Martha Stark, MD, a graduate of Harvard Medical School and the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, is a holistic (adult and child) psychiatrist and integrative psychoanalyst in private practice in Boston, MA. She is on the Faculty at Harvard Medical School and is Co-Founder / Co-Director of the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies at William James College.
Martha is an award-winning author of 9 highly acclaimed books (including Relentless Hope: The Refusal to Grieve) on the integration of psychodynamic theory with clinical practice – several of which have become “required reading” in psychoanalytic training institutes and psychodynamic psychotherapy programs in the US and abroad. Martha is the Originator / Developer of the Psychodynamic Synergy Paradigm: A C.A.R.E. Approach to Deep Healing.
Presentation Archive
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