Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- PART I INTRODUCTION: THE EXPERIENCE OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
- PART II THE EXPERIENCE SAMPLING METHOD: PROCEDURES AND ANALYSES
- PART III EXPERIENCE SAMPLING STUDIES WITH CLINICAL SAMPLES
- PART IV THERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS OF THE EXPERIENCE SAMPLING METHOD
- 20 The uses of the ESM in psychotherapy
- 21 Expanding the experiential parameters of cognitive therapy
- 22 The monitoring of optimal experience: a tool for psychiatric rehabilitation
- 23 The ESM and the measurement of clinical change: a case of anxiety disorder
- 24 The applicability of ESM in personalized rehabilitation
- 25 Everyday self-awareness: implications for self-esteem, depression and resistance to therapy
- PART V PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH APPLICATIONS: PRACTICAL ISSUES and ATTENTION POINTS
- CLOSING Looking to the future
- References
- List of contributors
- Index
23 - The ESM and the measurement of clinical change: a case of anxiety disorder
from PART IV - THERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS OF THE EXPERIENCE SAMPLING METHOD
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- PART I INTRODUCTION: THE EXPERIENCE OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
- PART II THE EXPERIENCE SAMPLING METHOD: PROCEDURES AND ANALYSES
- PART III EXPERIENCE SAMPLING STUDIES WITH CLINICAL SAMPLES
- PART IV THERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS OF THE EXPERIENCE SAMPLING METHOD
- 20 The uses of the ESM in psychotherapy
- 21 Expanding the experiential parameters of cognitive therapy
- 22 The monitoring of optimal experience: a tool for psychiatric rehabilitation
- 23 The ESM and the measurement of clinical change: a case of anxiety disorder
- 24 The applicability of ESM in personalized rehabilitation
- 25 Everyday self-awareness: implications for self-esteem, depression and resistance to therapy
- PART V PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH APPLICATIONS: PRACTICAL ISSUES and ATTENTION POINTS
- CLOSING Looking to the future
- References
- List of contributors
- Index
Summary
In this chapter the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) is used to study the daily fluctuations in the mental state of an agoraphobic patient over the course of a year. This case study illustrates the relevance of the ‘Flow Theory’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 1985), and the key concept of ‘Optimal Experience’ in mental patients. Optimal experience is the state of mind that arises when high environmental challenges are balanced with high personal skills in facing them (Csikszentmihalyi & Massimini, 1985; Massimini, Csikszentmihalyi & Delle Fave, 1986, 1988). Recent studies show that this positive experiential state is recognized across cultures. The theory holds that in daily life, normal subjects tend to reproduce optimal experience selectively and to look for activities which facilitate this experience and attempt to devote as much time and psychic energy to these activities as possible (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton, 1981). The selected activities may include routine daily tasks, as well as leisure, but as sources of optimal experience, they are basically related to the intrinsic motivation of the subject and are performed for their own sake, regardless of material rewards.
ESM was applied to the study of daily life in a number of different samples and cultures. As deVries (1987) points out, it allows one to ‘overcome the shortcomings of retrospective recall in psychiatric research’. Therefore, it is also suited to sample the experiences in the daily life of ambulatory psychiatric patients between therapeutic sessions.
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- Information
- The Experience of PsychopathologyInvestigating Mental Disorders in their Natural Settings, pp. 280 - 289Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992
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