The "Essentials of Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy" offer for the first time in English an insight into the guiding ideas of this integrative psychotherapy method, which is consistently anchored in Gestalt psychology (and in this respect also differs substantially from most streams of Gestalt therapy, with which it should not be confused). The anthology includes ten contributions by authors from Austria, Italy, Germany and the USA. These deal with fundamental questions and concepts of any psychotherapy: The role and meaning of consistency (...) in practical life and in psychotherapy; the question of human epistemic possibilities and an epistemology appropriate for psychotherapy; the personality theory of Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy; the basic principles of therapeutic relationship and practice; the role of emotions in the example of phenomenal causality of feelings; the task of diagnostics in Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy; a clinical example related to anorexia; Gestalt psychological viewpoints for therapy progress; the role of relational determination in intrapsychic and interpersonal experience. (shrink)

Summary Giancarlo Trombini presents the continuation of his research on the question of which criteria can be used to assess the progress of therapy in an objectively verifiable way and to make the decision on the completion of therapy. In the first phase of his research, the phenomenological criterion of a qualitative change in the patient’s relations toward the positive and higher complexity was proposed for this purpose. In terms of the working method in analytic therapy, this meant concretely: attention (...) should be paid to what development is shown in the comparison of the relationships that occur in the dream narrative and in the subsequent associations. This criterion was therefore given the name manifest dream/association comparison (MDAC)—comparison between the manifest dream and the subsequent associations. The idea can easily be transferred to those therapy methods, which do not primarily work with reports of dream memories and subsequent associations—also, in other ways of working, it is possible to pay attention, in the way suggested by Trombini, to the qualitative development of the relationships which are thematized by the clients in the course of an hour. To this first criterion, another phenomenological criterion is now added in the present article: that of the “concluding therapeutic turn” (CTT). If the patient’s development reaches this turn in the course of the therapy in one session, this indicates, according to Trombini, that the therapy can soon be concluded. The fulfillment of this criterion can be recognized by the fact that in the sequence of dream narration and subsequent associations in a session, a relational dynamic toward the positive and higher complexity becomes recognizable and that is, at the same time, connected with a reconciliation of the three temporal reference systems (past, present, and future). The achievement of this CTT indicates that the patient is aware of the changes made in therapy and makes it evident to the therapist that the therapy is nearing completion. (shrink)

Aim of this study was to investigate whether parental mental representations during pregnancy and after delivery differed between parents who conceived after Assisted Reproductive Treatments and spontaneous conceiving parents. Effects of specific ART variables were also taken into account. Seventeen ART couples and 25 SC couples were recruited at Santa Maria Nuova Hospital. At both 32 weeks of gestation and 3 months postpartum participants completed the Semantic Differential of the IRMAG, a self-report tool which measures specific domains of mental representations (...) pertaining either individual or parental characteristics. Results showed that ART parents had significantly more positive representations of the child compared to SC parents, while the scores at Partner dimension improved from T1 to T2 for SC parents only. With regards to ART history, scores at the Self-as-woman/man dimension were significantly less positive for ICSI than IVF parents and improved substantially from T1 to T2 only in case of mothers with previous ART attempts and of fathers at the first ART cycle. The representation of own parents increased from T1 to T2 in case of infertility diagnosis due to male factors, while a decrease emerged when infertility was due to female factors. Findings suggest the need to investigate parental mental representations after ART, in order to improve the understanding on the transition to parenthood of infertile couples and to target more specific intervention for parenting support. (shrink)