OPC Publications

Kilty, H. L. & Dewar, B. (2008). Book Review: Relationality: From attachment to intersubjectivity by S. Mitchell (2000). PrOSspect, 15(1), 8.

Mitchell’s book provides an important read for advanced students and practitioners of psychotherapy. He maps the theoretical history of psychoanalytic work from its origins in individualistic, intrapsychic processes to its contemporary focus on relationality, mutuality, attachment and intersubjectivity. He explores the issues and concerns that emerge from these approaches.

LeBrun L. (2007). Fully alive: Awakening Health, Humor, Compassion and Truth. Ottawa: Wel-Systems Institute.

Louise Lebrun continues to write in a growth inspiring way in this extension of her life's work as an author, speaker, coach and creator of WEL-Systems. She draws from scientific and intuitive wisdom to illuminate the power of the individual to reach their full life potential to build solutions at home, at work and in the world.

In the summer of 1961, I was a Benedictine monk in St. John's Abbey at Collegeville, Minnesota, studying for ordination as a Roman Catholic priest. That summer I was in charge of the little book store set up for people who came to the Abbey for summer retreats and other events. One of the pamphlets on sale the book store was Begone Satan!, an account of what was up to that point probably the best known and most spectacular case of satanic possession in the history of the United States.

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From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychological Healing
By: Adam Crabtree

Abstract and Book Review
Prepared for: Barb Dewar
By: Felicia Pavlovic
Date: Friday September 14th, 2007.

One line:

An historical overview of the alternate consciousness paradigm, tracing Mesmer’s discovery of animal magnetism in 1784 and its overwhelming influence on psychological healing over the 18th and 19th centuries, to its disappearance with the birth of Freud’s psychoanalytic model.

Abstract:

Eclecticism: A Book Review of Current Psychotherapies, 7th Edition
Raymond J. Corsini & Danny Wedding (Eds.), 2005
Belmont, CA: Thomson, Brooks/Cole

Prepared for: Prof. Barbara Dewar of
Espritedu Training of Psychotherapy Associates
By: Amy J. McGrath

Download full 62 page PDF

Table of Contents:

Introduction 3
Psychoanalysis (Freud) 5
Adlerian Psychotherapy 9
Analytic Psychotherapy (Jung) 14
Person-Centered Therapy 19

Sekhmet Rising: The Restlessness of Women's Genius (2006) Created and edited by Louise LeBrun, "with 17 Amazing Women" as contributing co-writers including Karina Evangelista, Dorothy Spence, Eva Marsh, Harjit Shokar, Susan Griffin, Koreen Kimakowich, Anita Allen, Theresa McKeown, Carole Maclnnis, Dominique Dennery, Gwen McCauley, Jackie Zirpdji, Patricia Donihee, Celine Levasseur Burlock, Susan Bremner, and Lorna LeBrun.

Published by The WEL-Systems Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Reviewed by Heather Lee Kilty and Barbara Dewar

Louise LeBrun, author and founder of The WEL-Systems Institute invited seventeen women participants and facilitators of the WEL-Systems growth experience to contribute narratives about their personal journeys and transformations to become more authentically themselves. "Each has had to come face-to-face with herself; not just who she wanted to be but who she has already become" (p.2). The introduction aptly warns the reader: "Be well warned: these women are highly contagious!"(p. 4). Each courageous and challenging story invites the reader to awaken to their own potential testimonies and to actively choose their own meaningful life opportunities.

Dewar, B., & Kilty, H. (spring, 2006).
Book Review: Making Sense Together. OSP Newsletter PrOSPect. Vol. 13, No. 2.

Making Sense Together: The Intersubjective Approach to Psychotherapy.
Peter Buirski and Pamela Haglund, 2001
Jason Aronson Inc. $53.50

Reviewed by Barbara Dewar and Heather Lee Kilty

Authors Buirski and Haglund have created a superb introductory text related to intersubjective theory and practice. This valuable contribution to the psychotherapy literature provides an overview of the basic fundamental concepts, ideas and therapeutic applications of intersubjective relational therapy. Experienced and novice practitioners are provided with rich, clinical illustrations that make the intersubjective come alive.

Challenging the Socialization of the Word "Cancer" and Making Decisions Based on My Intuitive Consciousness

Cancer defined as cells that divide too rapidly didn't tell me anything about my medical diagnosis of breast cancer. A very close friend suggested that I think of my diagnosis as having cancering cells in an area of my body, instead of my breast being a cancer. I could work with a verb, an action attached to cancer instead of a noun, which defined cancer as something diagnosed by someone who is an expert on something. I thought to myself that any given action is unique to the individual and that person's motivations perform the action. I wanted to make good decisions based on intuitive guidance from my inner world, tapping into a world where good messages were previously unconscious to me.

A psychodynamic process-focused group therapy differs from a psychoeducational group. In a psychoeducational group experience, the leader's mandate is to give the members necessary information for a focused issue, symptom or psychopathology; the main discourse centres on the focused issue. These groups are usually short term and hold the goal of ameliorating the symptom. Psychodynamic process-focused groups use methods that support dialogue about the members' interpersonal worlds. By articulating their interpersonal worlds, members are enriched by stronger self-identities that lead to expanding choices as to life options. The process model aims for self-transformation as constructed in relation to others. In process groups, the leader assumes the role of facilitator rather than educator. These groups often have an open-ended time commitment.

This edition of Espritpublications is unique. We have offered six of our Esprit Training of Psychotherapy Associates (ETPC) students an opportunity to share their self-reflective essays with our readership.

Can psychic and/or spirit experiences create meanings that foster the spiritual development of world religions? Throughout this exploration, I am assuming that all world religions are parts of an ever expanding whole. Steven Hawking (1990) hypothesized that the universe is always expanding, and for me, this opens the question of an ultimate knowing, possibilities or impossibilities.

Svoboda (1967), in his essay entitled "Parapsychology", provides the reader with a developmental history of paranormal phenomena and their levels of acceptance by institutions, especially world religions. The author explains that "for many centuries paranormal phenomena were considered the work of some dismembered ghost or supernatural force working through a 'crossed' human agent" (Svoboda, 1967, p. 995).In most early religions, especially the Christian religion, the paranormal was debated and often considered the work of Satan, and the church disavowed their experience.

Technique one: Dream work and free association

Freud was clear in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) that dreams are a direct connection to unconscious inner life. Modern psychoanalysis, specifically the intersubjective, has completely rejected Freudian psychoanalysis in favor of a relational model where discovery is what happens in the intersubjective field between the subjective world of the psychotherapist and the subjective world of the client. For me, Freud's theories on dream analysis are not contradictory but complimentary to the intersubjective domain. I have found his discovered knowledge of the method for analyzing dreams and the use of free association by the client in order to discover the hidden meaning in the dream work extremely useful as a technique for psychotherapy work.