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Clinical indicators of structural change

Clinical indicators of structural change Douglas H. Ingram A question that inevitably faces analytically minded clinicians is how to decide if deep and lasting personality change, true structural change, has occurred in patients. The question bears relevance because the meaning and value of the clinical enterprise relies on how clinicians view their work as benefiting those seeking assistance. Furthermore, technical considera- tions in individual instances often turn on whether nontrivial, nonsuper- ficial change is perceived to have occurred. The issue of structure itself, in the sense of personality structure, arose when Freud realized that the topographical theory and its treatment goal ("making the unconscious conscious'9 was insufficient. After all, if, as seemed the case, the agent responsible for causing repression is itself repressed, then only obscurity results. To overcome this difficulty, in 1923 Freud formulated the structural theory and its treatment goal ("where id was ego shall be"); Freud believed that repression was chiefly grounded in castration anxiety. 1 Because of its potential application to a theory of personality structure, Rene Thom's mathematical proof, published in Structural Stability and Morphogenesis, deserves our consideration. 2 Thorn has established a model, referred to as the catastrophe model, that seems to improve com- prehension of those phenomena http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The American Journal of Psychoanalysis Springer Journals

Clinical indicators of structural change

Ingram, Douglas H.
The American Journal of Psychoanalysis , Volume 43 (1): 10 – Mar 1, 1983
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References (20)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
1983 Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis
ISSN
0002-9548
eISSN
1573-6741
DOI
10.1007/BF01253497
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Douglas H. Ingram A question that inevitably faces analytically minded clinicians is how to decide if deep and lasting personality change, true structural change, has occurred in patients. The question bears relevance because the meaning and value of the clinical enterprise relies on how clinicians view their work as benefiting those seeking assistance. Furthermore, technical considera- tions in individual instances often turn on whether nontrivial, nonsuper- ficial change is perceived to have occurred. The issue of structure itself, in the sense of personality structure, arose when Freud realized that the topographical theory and its treatment goal ("making the unconscious conscious'9 was insufficient. After all, if, as seemed the case, the agent responsible for causing repression is itself repressed, then only obscurity results. To overcome this difficulty, in 1923 Freud formulated the structural theory and its treatment goal ("where id was ego shall be"); Freud believed that repression was chiefly grounded in castration anxiety. 1 Because of its potential application to a theory of personality structure, Rene Thom's mathematical proof, published in Structural Stability and Morphogenesis, deserves our consideration. 2 Thorn has established a model, referred to as the catastrophe model, that seems to improve com- prehension of those phenomena

Journal

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis – Springer Journals

Published: Mar 1, 1983

Keywords: Clinical Psychology; Psychotherapy; Psychoanalysis

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