Pain Therapy through New Images of Self
Creative-Dynamic Image Synthesis
by
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Images against PainChronic pain can be caused by emotional factors: stress, overtaxation, conflicts, traumatic experiences. Where this applies, it is insufficient merely to treat pain symptomsphysically. Creative-Dynamic Image Synthesis, using images visualized and sketched by the patients themselves, grants them access to emotional causes of their condition and to untapped potentials of their person. The method can either be applied in short-term therapy lasting 4 to 12 sessions, or as a component of treatment within a longer-term psychotherapy. With § a manual giving step-by-step instructions, as well as checklists and forms for duplication, § numerous case studies and colored sketches made by patients, § background knowledge on somatoform pain conditions and empirical studies on the effectiveness of the method. From the contents: Socrates and Charmides’ headache Why and How is Pain Generated? The Processing of Pain (neuronal networks, pain memory, psychological influences on the perception and generation of pain) – Etiological Subgroups – Epidemiology – Risk Factors (relationship between physician and patient, sociocultural factors) – Models of How Pain Arises (neurobiology, conversion, affect isolation, alexithymia, learning theory) – Psychodynamics (depression, anxiety, mobbing, ambition) Creative-Dynamic Image Synthesis: Indications and Contraindications – Therapy Process (motivations, data collection and diagnosis, biographical curve, coin image, therpeutic goals) – Manual: Step-by-step Realization – Evaluation of Therapeutic Progress – Case Studies Effectiveness: Pilot Study on Chronic Tension Headache Background: Concept of Self, Daydream Psychotherapy, Integration Technique of NLP, Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis, Symptomatic Image, Aggressive Image, Integrative Image, Potential Self versus Ego-Ideal, Concepts of Self from a Psychoanalytic Point of View, Factors Contributing to Healing Forms for Duplication Glossary
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About the Book
When pain patients claim they have "no emotional problems" and offer considerable resistance toward attempts to approach their conflicts, Creative-Dynamic Image Synthesis with its focus on patients' resources presents a valuable option.
In presenting Creative-Dynamic Image Synthesis, this book describes a method for psychotherapeutic treatment of somatoform pain disorders. It also provides empiric data on the effectiveness of the method and a manual detailing its practical implementation.
This is a design for short therapy, which can be realized in as few as four to twelve sessions, but in cases of severe trauma can and should be integrated as an element within a longer-term psychotherapy. The principle core of the method consists in the imaginative development of three special images which are sketched and used daily in a imaginative process of self-treatment. The basis for this daily exercise is an image of the future which portrays formerly unrealized potential of the patient and which has been developed in an imaginative fusion of two earlier images. This future image relates to the therapeutic goal and is capable of providing orientation and meaning. In a series of case studies, the process of treatment is illustrated.
Of interest to: psychologists, primary care physicians, pain therapist, art therapists; students of psychology and medicine; and interested persons who themselves suffer from somatoform pain disorders.
About the Author
Dr. med. Katja Obenaus, Munich, specialist for psychosomatic medicine, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, working in private practice and as a teaching therapist for psychosomatic primary care, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin, Germany/EU.