Viktor Frankl’s theory and therapy grew out of his experiences in Nazi death camps. He saw that people who had hopes of being reunited with loved ones, or who had projects they felt a need to complete, or who had great faith, tended to have better chances than those who had lost all hope. In this video he examines man’s search for meaning and the effect meaning has on life.

There can be little doubt that the single most important factor in the successful treatment of traumatized patients is the quality, resilience and trust that can be established within the therapeutic relationship.  Indeed we would probably all agree that it is impossible to consider any single therapeutic technique independent of the therapeutic relationship in which it occurs.  As such there has been much emphasis in the literature of late on the therapist’s function as a co-regulator of intense affect states, a partner in mutual regulation of traumatic flashbacks, a trusted witness to the traumatic memories and reenactments which emerge in the course of therapeutic work.  In this context it is important for the therapist to be honest, reliable, empathic and emotionally present. 

Dr. Messler Davis takes a closer look at what it means to be “empathic,” and what it means to establish a “new” relationship with a dissociatively organized traumatized patient.  What constitutes an empathic response to a patient who is raging and provocative?  Is such rage always a reaction to empathic failure or is it rather a desperate plea for a different kind of empathic understanding?  How does a certain kind of empathy actually intensify a patient’s experience of shame and humiliation?   How does one empathize simultaneously with the multiple self states that constitute the “new” therapeutic relationship?  And finally, how does one contend with therapeutic idealization as both a necessary background for certain kinds of therapeutic progress and also a potential inhibitory factor in certain kinds of common therapeutic stalemates?  An extended clinical example will be provided in an attempt to explore these issues that constitute the “dark side” of empathic responsiveness.

Educational objectives:

1. To appreciate the difference between kindness and empathic responsiveness.
2. To understand the complexities of therapeutic idealization as both a facilitator and inhibitor of therapeutic progress.
3. To understand how shame functions at the heart of many therapeutic impasses.

AEDP has identified and described a phenomenology of positive affective experiences, including the healing affects and core state. This workshop explores the vital role of positive emotion in the process of change.

Drs. Fosha and Frederick demonstrate how through the moment-to-moment tracking of bodily rooted experience, dyadic affect regulation and the processing of suffering,  repairs relational trauma.