BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online

    'Characters' in psychoanalytic and interpersonal therapy: a comparison

    Spurling, Laurence S. (2012) 'Characters' in psychoanalytic and interpersonal therapy: a comparison. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 26 (3), pp. 230-244. ISSN 0266-8734.

    [img] Text (Refereed)
    characters_paper.pdf - Published Version of Record
    Restricted to Repository staff only

    Download (118kB) | Request a copy

    Abstract

    In this paper the author considers how the therapist might listen to the characters talked about by his or her patients. In psychoanalytic therapy the emphasis is on listening to the patient’s characters as though they are located in psychic reality and as representatives of the transference relationship, whereas in interpersonal therapy (IPT) the patient’s characters are taken as inhabiting the realm of external reality. It is argued that clinical thinking in IPT would be enhanced by taking more account of psychic reality, which will make clearer the quality of external reality in which the patient’s characters are located. It is also argued that both therapies share an interest in enabling the patient to find characters which can serve as holograms of previously unexpressed affective experience.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): characters, interpersonal therapy, psychoanalytic therapy, realms of reality
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Depositing User: Laurence Spurling
    Date Deposited: 07 Dec 2012 13:58
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:00
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/5666

    Statistics

    Activity Overview
    6 month trend
    1Download
    6 month trend
    234Hits

    Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.

    Archive Staff Only (login required)

    Edit/View Item Edit/View Item