CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY: PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH

This course aims to introduce students to the main principles that guide psychodynamic psychotherapy, by focusing on some important theoretical and clinical issues. More specifically, the main models of the mind in psychoanalytic theory and therapy will be discussed -drawing upon authors such as Freud, Klein, Kohut, Winnicott and other object relations theorists – as well as models of therapeutic change. Moreover, several issues of psychoanalytic technique are presented, including the psychoanalytic assessment interview and psychodynamic formulation, therapist interventions, as well as issues concerning the setting of psychotherapy, the therapeutic relationship (transference, counter-transference and working alliance). Furthermore, the role of unconscious communication, fantasy and symbolism in psychodynamic therapy are discussed as well as psychoanalytic approaches to understanding and working with resistance in the psychotherapeutic process. In addition to lectures, clinical material will be presented and discussed from a psychodynamic perspective and key psychoanalytic texts studied.