The Focus in Brief Interpretive Psychotherapy: Dilemmas, Traps and Snags as Target Problems

29 January 1979

journal article
case report
Published by Royal College of Psychiatrists in The British Journal of Psychiatry

Vol. 134 (1) , 46-54
https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.134.1.46

Abstract

Summary: The need for a focus for brief interpretive psychotherapy is considered and a new approach is suggested. In this method, the ways in which the patient's construction of himself and his relationships are related to his problems are identified and expressed in the form of dilemmas, traps and snags. It is suggested that these formulations represent an appropriate level of abstraction, allowing patient and therapist to share provisional hypotheses about the goals of therapy and offering the basis for a method of measuring how far these goals are achieved.

Keywords

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