PSY 571 - INTRODUCTION TO INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOTHERAPY
Spring, 2006
Monday, 5:30-8:30 pm
Brooke J. Cannon, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology,
Director of Clinical Training, Psy.D. Program
Marywood University
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Website:  www.brookecannon.com

• All behavior in a social context
• Interpersonal psychology
• Holistic, not polarities
• Unconscious as adjective, rather than noun
• Life is choices
• Social interest
• No diagnosis
• Living demands courage-willingness to take risks
• Life is meaningless - we give it meaning

• Family constellation
• Child’s position in the family
• Psychological position
• Life Style Convictions

• Self-concept
• Self-ideal
• Weltbild
• Ethical convictions

• Client must have faith/trust - must establish rapport
• Encouragement, therapy as joint effort
• Humor
• Empathy - client must feel that therapist cares
• Patient is to be active in therapy
• Initial goals and expectations in first interview
• Must understand the client’s life style
• Therapist as real person - fallible
• Pay attention to client’s posture and other non-verbals
• Early Recollections
• “Scripts”
• “Have you ever seen a patient like me before?”
  

• Overgeneralizations
• False/impossible goals of “security”
• Misperception
• Minimization
• Faulty social values

• The magical question
• “What would life be like if you didn’t have these problems?”

• Request that patient act “as if...”
• Interpretation via “could it be that...”
• Paradoxical intention
• Creating images - metaphors
• Catching oneself
• “Push button” technique

• People born with potential to be rational and irrational
• Influenced by culture and family group
• Perceive, think, emote, and behave simultaneously
• Warm therapist/client relationship is not enough
• Heredity isn’t everything, still involves perception
• Insights don’t do it alone
• Designed to change basic values, not alleviate symptoms
• Use variety of behavioral techniques

• A - activating events
• B - beliefs about activating experiences
• C - consequences of your beliefs about activating experiences
• Does “A” causes “C”?
• Epictetus
• “People are not disturbed by things, but by the view which they take of them”
• Antecedents, yes, but maintenance thru beliefs
• Continued upset due to perpetual indoctrination
• Only hard work and practice will correct irrational beliefs
• D - disputing or debating your irrational beliefs
• E - effects of disputing or debating your irrational beliefs
  

• Misperceptions
• Beliefs
• Past experiences

• Change in information processing

• Believing one lacks the ability to cope or control an event’s outcome
• Much like learned helplessness

• Questioning to promote new learning

• Cognitive Triad
• View of self, world, and future
• Schemas
• Cognitive structures
• Consist of person’s fundamental beliefs and assumptions
• Adaptive or dysfunctional
• General or specific
• Competing
• Cognitive Errors
• Distortions

• Decatastrophizing
• “What if”
• Reattribution
• Decrease personalization
• Redefining
• Makes problem more concrete
• Specific
• Related to patient’s behavior
• Decentering
• Not focus of attention
  

• Homework - self-monitoring, self-observation
• Hypothesis testing - feedback, monitoring
• Exposure therapy
• Behavioral rehearsal and role-playing
• Diversion
• Activity scheduling
• Graded task assignment