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Treatment failure in humanistic and experiential psychotherapy
Author(s) -
Watson Jeanne C.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.20849
Subject(s) - attunement , psychotherapist , psychology , experiential learning , shame , humanism , session (web analytics) , narrative , social psychology , medicine , alternative medicine , pedagogy , linguistics , philosophy , pathology , world wide web , political science , computer science , law
In this article, treatment failure in humanistic experiential psychotherapy is defined and explored. I outline several markers that indicate when treatment is not going well. Factors that contribute to failure include client factors, for example, emotional processing capacities, shame, and impoverished narratives, as well as therapist factors including lack of empathic attunement and inflexibility. Treatment failure is illuminated with a case example drawn from humanistic/experiential psychotherapy, and clinical strategies for dealing with failures are recommended. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol: In Session, 67:1117–1128, 2011.