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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Anthony Ryle
Anthony Ryle*
Affiliation:
University Health Service, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton
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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.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 134 , Issue 1 , January 1979 , pp. 46 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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