Talking Therapy Episode 26: From Therapist Frustration to Compassion

Hosts:

Producer:

Alan Kian, MA, York University
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marvin Goldfried is a distinguished professor of psychology at Stony Brook University, where he helped to develop the graduate program in clinical psychology—he is the cofounder of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration. Allen Frances is a professor of psychiatry and chair emeritus at Duke, and was chair of the DSM-IV task force.

Marvin describes the evolution of his psychotherapy orientation as psychodynamic, behavioral, CBT, and eventually integrative. He practices, teaches, and supervises what works clinically using direct and indirect evidence base.

Allen describes his approach to psychotherapy as “whatever works” or “no one size fits all”. He was trained and taught at the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center, but remains equally interested in brief, supportive, cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal, and family therapies.

Please enjoy this week’s episode!

[lilysunshine]

Thank you Dr. Goldfried, for not blaming the patient for trained therapists frustration.

[christinemolnar]

Love / friendliness meets suffering - a Buddhist conceptualization of compassion!

[cch]

Before Linehan, it was Carl Rogers who stated that therapists’ Unconditional Positive Regard would help clients be perceived as ‘interesting and sympathetic’ and as people of value and dignity.
It is quite frustrating that in this series there is a consistent lack of acknowledgement of the importance of humanistic therapies, while there is a triumphant sense that CBT forms of therapy have “invented the wheel”.

[AnnaPrzebudzona]

I have a whole collection of examples of outrageous behaviours my therapist demonstrated and then attributed my anger to my disturbed personality. Once he rescheduled the session (btw, he did this notoriously) for an earlier hour so I had to rush and when I got to his office I had to wait in the waiting room for half an hour while he was talking to the patient that was in his office. When he finally opened the door he was surprised and said ”Oh, I didn't realize you were here.”... I was furious and yet I persisted for another four months because his mistreatment of me kept me hooked. The bigger the collection of his outrageous behaviours towards me was, the stronger I persisted because I was determined to change HIM... I've wasted so much money and energy on this ridiculous endeavour.

[christinemolnar]

I appreciate the compassion in your voice tone Dr. G (& Dr. F) as you describe how to respond to these challenges in accurate attunement to reality of self & other. I continue to look forward to these each week!