American Journal of Psychotherapy
May 6, 2025
David A Bender, Sandeep M. Nayak, Joshua S. Siegel et al.
7 citations
Psychedelic therapies are promising new treatment options in psychiatry. Including the use of physical touch as part of treatment is an area of debate. This study aimed to characterize the viewpoints of practitioners on the use of touch in psychedelic therapy. An anonymous survey was distributed via e-mail to the contacts listed on ClinicalTrials.gov for trials of psilocybin and lysergic acid...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
July 23, 2021
David Horton, Blaise Morrison, Judy A. Schmidt
92 citations
This systematized review found important commonalities among clinical trials of PAP published within the past 25 years and revealed key differences among studies in psychotherapy's incorporation into PAP. Additional research is needed to identify the unique effect of psychotherapy in PAP.
American Journal of Psychotherapy
July 27, 2018
Brian A Chopko, Konstantinos Papazoglou, Robert Schwartz
First responders are psychosocially burdened with work-related stressors that occur frequently during required duties. Related mental health difficulties, such as direct and vicarious trauma, depression, and interpersonal problems often affect first responders' ability to perform effectively, and their personal lives may be disrupted. Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to directly...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
2016
Michael Garrett
9 citations
Psychotherapy has gained wide acceptance as a primary treatment for nonpsychotic psychological disorders but has yet to find the same acceptance in the treatment of psychosis. One reason for this is the idea that schizophrenia is a genetically determined brain disease unlikely to respond to psychological treatments. A second reason is the difficulty most people have in relating the symptoms of...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
2004
Richard D Chessick
This paper emphasizes the humanistic and phenomenologic approach to the mind (soul, self) and contrasts it to the "era of the brain" that is so idealized by psychiatry today. It describes the debate between those who expect science to explain everything sooner or later and those who believe there are certain essential aspects of the world, such as the qualia of consciousness, that cannot be...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
2004
Joseph Meyerson, Marc Gelkopf
An out-of-body experience (OBE) is a unique dissociative event in which the person feels separated from his/her body. Studies and anecdotal reports have observed that this experience tends to appear spontaneously in stressful and hypnogogic situations. It often contributes to the person's later having a new perspective of himself and his conception of the world, and may influence his...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
2000
R F Thomson
Zen meditation, or zazen, has attracted the interest of many psychotherapists. The teachings and practices of the Soto Zen tradition are understood as encouraging important areas of both psychological and spiritual development. Zen, like the relational psychoanalytic theories, encourages its practitioners to become aware of the fundamentally distorted aspects of an overly individualistic view...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
2000
O F Kernberg
This paper carries out an analysis of the nature of mature religiosity of the basis of psychoanalytic findings and concepts, rather than attempting a philosophical and theological approach to religion. It highlights a striking correspondence between the characteristics of mature religiosity, derived from the various sources of development of the ego-ideal and the superego, and reflecting a...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
1999
R Meares
This paper suggests that traumatic memories are represented in a way that is qualitatively different from nontraumatic memories. The argument depends upon a concept of self, derived from Hughlings Jackson and William James, which is double, involving not only mental life but reflection upon it. Trauma is seen as causing an uncoupling, or dedoubling, of consciousness. The traumatic diminishment...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
April 1, 1996
Ira Brenner
19 citations
This review has focused on the characterological features of dissociative identity disorder (DID), extending the "state versus trait" debate to the realm of the dissociative disorders. A number of different theories are presented describing DID as a variant of, on a continuum with, or being comorbid with the narcissistic and the borderline personality disorders. It is then hypothesized that DID...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
April 1, 1996
J. N. Schreuder
15 citations
Posttraumatic re-experiencing is a key symptom of earlier psychotraumatic experiences. It is important to establish whether we are dealing with nightmares or re-enactments. Posttraumatic nightmares are an expression of intrapsychic concerns and conflicts and, in and of themselves, need not impede exploratory psychotherapy. The nightmare entails both regression to the perceptual level of a small...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
1996
R D Chessick
Those aspects of Heidegger's thought culminating in his notion of "authenticity" are described, and the use of his concepts in the psychotherapy of certain adolescents is suggested. This paper offers some details of Heidegger's position and its applicability to psychotherapy. Heidegger attempted to get around the scientistic attitude of our time by use of a phenomenological description of how...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
1995
M Nissim-Sabat
Deeper insight into the advantages of the Husserlian phenomenological standpoint for psychoanalysis is gained through correction and augmentation of Varghese's analysis drawn from his 1988 paper in this journal. In particular, insight into the radicality of both phenomenology and empathy shows that empathy cannot be understood outside of the phenomenological perspective, and that thus...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
1995
A L Mishara
In part I, I presented some results of empirical research on mind/body relationship: writing about traumatic experiences brings about improved psychological and physiological health. One important factor of healing in psychotherapy is thereby isolated empirically. In part II, it was shown that the cognitive science explanation of these findings, however, is based on categories deriving from...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
1994
B Lewis
Neuroscience is conceptually founded on a philosophy of mind known as identity theory. This theory claims that mental phenomena are reducible to the physical organ of the brain. But identity theory, and consequentially neuroscience, is unable to address essential human features of intentionality, consciousness, and autonomy, i.e., free will. Intentionally is the quality of having content or...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
October 1, 1991
Owen Lewis, J O'Brien
7 citations
Although various authors have discussed the technical modification required for dream interpretation with children, the basic conceptualization of the psychotherapeutic use of the dream with children has remained virtually identical to that with adult analysands. Examining various sources including formal studies on the nature of children's dreams, clinical case reports and series, and...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
July 1, 1991
Greg Bogart
67 citations
This article has explored research to date concerning the efficacy of introducing meditation into the therapeutic setting. I have presented the views of proponents and critics of the relaxation model of meditation and of theories describing the cognitive changes brought about by meditation--for example, Deikman's theory of the deautomatization of consciousness and Delmonte's view that...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
July 1, 1991
J D Atwood, L Maltin
26 citations
This paper examined the multidisciplinary trends in modern society that have given rise to the notion of the interconnectedness of the universe. This idea constitutes a radical departure from the spirit of basic research in physics, which had always been bent on finding the fundamental constituents of nature. The new physics abandons not only the idea of fundamental building blocks of matter,...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
April 1, 1987
M DelMonte
Meditation experiences are viewed from a constructivist perspective. Concentrative and mindfulness approaches are compared. It is concluded that, although these meditative techniques differ (and often are used in conjunction), they both yield insight into how the mind processes experience at both the preverbal and verbal levels.
American Journal of Psychotherapy
July 1, 1986
Lester Grinspoon, James B. Bakalar
189 citations
Many preindustrial cultures traditionally use certain psychedelic plants to enhance a procedure that resembles psychotherapy--an idea that was also tested in Western psychiatry in the 1950s and 1960s. LSD and related drugs were used to facilitate the production of memories, fantasies and insights and to enhance the therapeutic alliance. The results were inconclusive, and research was largely...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
1985
M H Spero
I have suggested that the plea for increased respect for the religious patient's perspectives demands a willingness on the psychotherapist's part to acknowledge the unique reality of the patient's relationships with religious objects, a reality which extends beyond the assumptions and predicates of standard interpersonal models of human behavior. At the same time, the psychotherapist can...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
1980
R A Clark
Though most previous publications described religious delusions only among Christians, a review of cases at Friends Hospital revealed that they are equally common among Jews. Five cases are given, four illustrating psychotic reactions to stress, one demonstrating that a religious experience does not necessarily result in psychosis. Content may come from either the Old or New Testaments. The...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
October 1, 1978
E G Solomon, A K Bumpus
The physical technique of slow, long distance running and the mental centering devices of T. M. are combined, using hypnosis in some cases, to enhance a "peak experience," or altered state of consciousness. Indications and contraindications to this technique are described for various psychiatric, psychosomatic and somatic syndromes, and its use as an adjunct to formal individual and group...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
July 1977
J T Carpenter
This article is a brief introduction to several different Eastern systems of philosophy and therapy. It surveys the Buddhist contributions and several contemporary applications of traditional meditation techniques within the framework of modern psychologic science. It is suggested that meditative exercises produce three therapeutic gains: insight into repetitive, self-defeating patterns of...
American Journal of Psychotherapy
1976
D Goleman
70 citations
According to Abhidhamma, a classical Asian phenomenology of consciousness, through meditation a set of "healthy" mental properties reciprocally inhibits an "unhealthy" set. In light of Abhidhamma and empirical findings, applications of meditation are suggested for inducing an optimal mode of responsiveness to environmental demands, and as a complementary adjunct to psychotherapy.