Repression: When Anger Goes Inwards

To treat depression, we must know what causes it. And by learning to assess each patient response, we can figure out what causes depression even in the therapy. Then we can address the cause and help the patient overcome her depression.

In this videotape presentation of an initial therapy session, we will learn how to identify what makes patients depressed so we can help them recover. The patient had suffered for years despite various therapies. She had a pattern of over-working, doing the work of others, and not being able to stand up for herself. Her husband was unemployed by choice, so she was the sole source of support. Due to her self-criticism, she could not see her genuine capacities and strengths.

Through the moment-to-moment analysis of the session, we will learn how to support depressed patients, how to help them build the inner strength they need to face the feelings they have feared, and how to help them bear together with us what they could not bear alone.

• -Explain the defenses used in the resistance system of repression
• -Grade invitations to feelings for patients using repression
• -Describe stacking invitations to feelings for more rise using repression
• -Identify non-verbal signals when the patient shifts into repression
• -Trace the defenses patients use in repression
• -Demonstrate signs of the unconscious therapeutic alliance to guide exploration of feelings
• -Compare non-verbal signs of increased affect tolerance in the patient moving out of repression

This workshop is being provided via Zoom. For login details please register using the links provided.