Reflective functioning and the therapeutic relationship: Understanding change in brief relational therapy.
Item
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Title
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Reflective functioning and the therapeutic relationship: Understanding change in brief relational therapy.
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Identifier
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AAI3024762
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identifier
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3024762
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Creator
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Bernbach, Elizabeth.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Arietta Slade
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Date
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2001
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Clinical
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Abstract
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The aim of this study was examine the relationship between change on self-report measures of symptoms and interpersonal problems and change on an observer-rated measure of reflective functioning over the course of a thirty-session Brief Relational Psychotherapy (Safran & Muran, 2000) treatment. Ten patient-therapist dyads were equally divided into good outcome and poor outcome groups. Patients were treated at Beth Israel Medical Center and met criteria for depressive or anxiety disorders. Case selection for good outcome or poor outcome groups was determined by change on the Reliable Change Index (Jacobson & Truax, 1991): a composite score derived from the Symptom Checklist 90-R (Derogatis,1983) and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems-64 (Alder, Wiggins & Pincus, 1990). Groups were compared on the observer-rated Reflective Functioning Scale adapted from the 1998 Reflective-Functioning Manual, version 5 (Fonagy et al.,1998).;Results showed that Reflective Functioning (RF) scores did change significantly over the course of treatment. The curves of the changes for the two groups were different. The poor outcome group demonstrated very little change, either positively or negatively, from the beginning to the end of treatment. The good outcome group demonstrated an increase in RF during the midphase of treatment and a decrease in RF at the termination of treatment. These findings suggest that RF is a useful way to measure change in a person's representations of the self and others over the course of psychotherapy.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
