Abstract
BackgroundTherapist’s emotional reactions toward patients in clinical facilities are a key concept in the treatment of personality disorders. Considering only clinical settings specialized in treatment of personality pathology the present paper aimed at: (1) assessing any direct relationship between patient symptom severity and therapist emotional response; (2) exploring patients’ functioning configurations that can be associated with specific therapist reactions (3) investigating whether these relationships remains significant when accounting for other setting variables related to patients or therapist.MethodsThe present study included 43 outpatients with personality disorders who underwent a psychotherapy treatment in two Italian facilities dedicated to outpatients with personality disorders and their 19 psychotherapists. The Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90R) was used to explore clinical severity condition. Psychotherapists completed the Therapist Response Questionnaire (TRQ) to identify pattern of therapists’ response and the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure-200 (SWAP-200) in order to assess personality traits of the patients.ResultsNo significant relationship between the clinical severity of the symptoms and the therapist’ responses was found. Even when controlled for clinical severity condition, duration of the treatment, age and educational level of the patient or years of therapist experience, most of SWAP-200 traits appeared to be significant predictors of therapist’ emotional responses.ConclusionsThe present study confirms the value of therapists’ emotional response as a useful tool in understanding psychological processes related to clinical practice highlighting its context-dependent dimension.
Highlights
Treating people with personality disorders (PD), in particular with borderline personality disorder, can trigger intensive emotional reactions in the psychotherapist [1]
We address three specific research questions: (1) Is there a relationship between patients’ symptom severity and therapist emotional response? (2) Are there patients’ functioning configurations that can be associated with specific therapist reactions? (3) Do correlations between countertransference and patient personality functioning remain significant when accounting for variables such as patient or therapist characteristics?
No significant correlations were found between Global Severity Index (GSI) score and Therapist Response Questionnaire (TRQ) factors
Summary
Treating people with personality disorders (PD), in particular with borderline personality disorder, can trigger intensive emotional reactions in the psychotherapist [1]. The available evidence confirms that patients with PD, especially borderline disorders, tend to be associated with a strong emotional reaction in the therapist. This reaction was found in large samples of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists that explored cases taken from their private practice psychotherapies and not exclusively from centers specialized in the treatment of personality disorders [5, 6]. Considering only clinical settings specialized in treatment of personality pathology the present paper aimed at: (1) assessing any direct relationship between patient symptom severity and therapist emotional response; (2) exploring patients’ functioning configurations that can be associated with specific therapist reactions (3) investigating whether these relationships remains significant when accounting for other setting variables related to patients or therapist
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