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APA Psychotherapy Training Videos are intended solely for educational purposes for mental health professionals. Viewers are expected to treat confidential material found herein according to strict professional guidelines. Unauthorized viewing is prohibited.
In Affect-Focused Dynamic Psychotherapy, Dr. Leigh McCullough demonstrates a system of therapy aimed at getting through a client's defense structure to elicit emotions. Because people tend to avoid difficult feelings, they often erect obstacles to experiencing emotion. According to this system of therapy, these emotional blocks usually lie at the core of a client's presenting problems. In the session shown, Dr. McCullough works with a young mother named Janice who, although she appears very strong, is actually emotionally rigid and resistant to experiencing her feelings. The example session illustrates how a client first sees her pattern of defense, then works through it and begins to change her sense of self and others. Read a review of this title from the PsycCRITIQUES database (PDF: 53KB)
This form of psychotherapy centers on emotion: The objective of this approach is to help clients to work through any defenses they may have to experiencing their feelings, because ultimately, the fear of feelings—or affect-phobia—underlies most of the work psychotherapists do. Because people are afraid of their feelings, especially strongly negative feelings, they will avoid them. To do this, they create barriers to feelings so that they do not even begin to experience their emotions. These maladaptive emotional blocks sometimes lie at the core of clients' presenting problems, so that simply eliciting feelings is often the most direct path toward resolving any therapeutic issues.
Leigh McCullough, PhD, is an associate clinical professor and director of the Psychotherapy Research Program at Harvard Medical School. She was the 1996 Voorhees Distinguished Professor at the Menninger Clinic and received the 1996 Michael Franz Basch Award from the Silvan Tomkins Institute for her contributions toward the exploration of affect in psychotherapy. Read more about Dr. McCullough
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