Occupational hazards and characterological vulnerability: the problem of "burnout."

Article Abstract:

Most psychotherapists are subject to professional burnout because when they learn different analytical methods, each method is presented as a perfect cure and so therapists feel a failure of the method is actually their own failure. Some defenses against burnout include masochism, where the therapists start to hate their work, or narcissism, where the therapists start to live through their patients and try to create a parent-child relationship with the patients. However, the only way to truly prevent burnout is to drop the perfectionist analytical approach.

Psychological aspects, Psychotherapists, Burn out (Psychology)

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On teaching psychoanalysis in antianalytic times: a polemic

Article Abstract:

Preconceptions often held by people seeking psychoanalytic training are discussed, and some positive aspects of psychoanalysis are also considered. Public and professional perceptions of psychoanalysts include ideas that analysts are cold and depriving, that analysts are arrogant, that they are conventional, inflexible, and indifferent to diversity, that they worship Freud, that Freud was authoritarian, sexist, heterosexist, and indifferent to child abuse, and that psychoanalysis has been empirically discredited.

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Discussion of "The use of dreams in the evaluation of severely disturbed patients." (Robert M. Friedman, this issue, American Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol. 52, p. 13, 1992)

Article Abstract:

Dreams can be very important in evaluating patients' emotional states in psychotherapy. However, an overemphasis on diagnosis can be dangerous. Diagnosis may oversimplify and thereby restrict the therapeutic process. The uniqueness and collaborative activity of the patient should rather be stressed. Pursuing affect through free association is an important aspect of therapy that is too frequently neglected.

Methods, Psychotherapy, Psychodiagnostics, Dreams, Dream analysis

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