Testing and treatment-by-attitude in psychotherapy for pathological narcissism: A clinical illustration.

Pathological narcissism is a personality constellation comprising distorted self-image, maladaptive self-esteem regulation, and difficulties in intimate relationships. Patients with elevated pathological narcissism may not necessarily meet criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, and may seek treatment for a range of mental health concerns across various clinical settings. An understanding of key principles of control-mastery theory (CMT) can help clinicians understand the specific goals and challenges of the individual patient with pathological narcissism, and can illuminate ways in which the patient may work in psychotherapy. This paper outlines how patients with pathological narcissism may engage in testing of their pathogenic beliefs, and how therapists can respond in ways that facilitate the patient's sense of safety and foster psychological work. The role of the therapist's attitude is highlighted as a means for countering pathogenic beliefs associated with pathological narcissism. Clinical material from a single case of time-limited supportive psychotherapy will be used to illustrate these principles and associated therapeutic processes. Insights from CMT regarding pathogenic beliefs and the patient's plan for addressing them can help to explain how therapy works or does not work for patients with pathological narcissism.

Passing tests and using one's attitude to help patients overcome their pathogenic feelings of guilt and shame.

Guilt and shame are emotions that, albeit subjectively negative, help humans adapt to their social environment. However, in some cases, there are pathogenic beliefs, shaped over the lifespan that sustain them and make them a source of psychopathological suffering. In this paper we will first briefly show how Control-Mastery Theory (CMT) considers several types of pathogenic beliefs shaped by traumatic experiences that underly chronic feelings of guilt and shame. We then focus on a clinical case of Livia, a 28 year-old woman with relational and academic problems suffering mainly from two such types of pathogenic beliefs: burdening guilt and disloyalty guilt. We describe how a) Livia was driven by adverse and traumatic experiences to form some of these pathogenic beliefs, b) how she tested the therapist in order to discover whether he would disconfirm these beliefs, and c) how the therapist was able to successfully pass these tests and provide her with new and healthier interpersonal experiences. The case of Livia will highlight therapists' ability to accurately formulate patients' goals, pathogenic beliefs-including types of guilt- and shame-related beliefs-and traumas. Moreover, the case will illustrate how therapists can pass patients' tests and adopt the right attitude to help patients disprove their pathogenic beliefs and overcome problematic experiences of guilt and shame.

The therapeutic effects of the therapists' ability to pass their patients' tests in psychotherapy.

Introduction According to Control-Mastery Theory (CMT)-a cognitive-dynamic relational theory of mental functioning, psychopathology, and psychotherapy-patients come to therapy with an unconscious plan to disprove their pathogenic beliefs and achieve adaptive goals. One of the primary ways patients work to disconfirm their pathogenic beliefs is by testing them within the therapeutic relationship. Objectives: The present study aimed to replicate and expand the results of previous studies suggesting that therapists' responses that disconfirmed patient's pathogenic beliefs were predictive of patients' within-session progress. Moreover, we wanted to investigate whether these interventions correlated with the therapeutic alliance. Methods: Transcriptions of 81 sessions from five brief psychodynamic psychotherapies were assessed by 11 independent raters. For each case, the patient's plan was formulated and tests identified, the accuracy of the therapist's responses to these tests was rated, and the impact of the therapist's interventions on the patient's subsequent communications and their relationship with the therapeutic alliance was measured. Results: The results supported the central hypothesis of the CMT that when the therapist's interventions passed the patient's tests, the patient showed signs of improvement. Moreover, the ability of the therapist to pass the patient's tests correlated with the therapeutic alliance. Conclusions: The clinical implications and the limitations of these findings are discussed, together with the relevance of a good case formulation for clinicians' optimal responsiveness.

The plan formulation method: An empirically validated and clinically useful procedure applied to a clinical case of a patient with a severe personality disorder.

The plan formulation method (PFM) is an empirically validated procedure for identifying a patient's goals for therapy, what is hindering the patient from attaining those goals, and how the patient is likely to work in therapy. In this paper, we employ the PFM to analyze the initial psychotherapy sessions of Geena, a 30-year-old outpatient with borderline personality disorder and relational and substance abuse problems. Employing the PFM, we identify a family of pathogenic beliefs (e.g., that she is unlovable and unworthy; that her parents will be hurt if she has satisfying intimate relationships) that Geena sought to disprove in her therapy and explain how she worked with the therapist to do so. We illustrate how the PFM can help the therapist identify what information and what types of interventions will be helpful for a given patient.

Case formulation of interpersonal patterns and its impact on the therapeutic process: Introduction to the issue.

Authors included in this issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology: In-Session come from diverse theoretical orientations but discuss methods of case conceptualization that share these assumptions: (1) that interpersonal patterns are salient to a good understanding of patient personality and problems and (2) that an individual formulation is helpful in responsively tailoring in-session processes to meet therapeutic goals. We believe these assumptions resonate with many practitioners working across settings, levels of severity, and theoretical orientations. Each author offers an overview of theory as well as a detailed case description that emphasizes the implications of each formulation for the subsequent process of therapy. A final paper provides commentary across the source papers. The issue is thus evocative not only about clinical practice issues but also of underlying theory. It speaks to the challenges and possibilities of transtheoretical integrated practice and research within our focal domain of common interest, interpersonal relationships.

Understanding interpersonal guilt: Associations with attachment, altruism, and personality pathology.

The aim of this article is to empirically investigate the relationships among interpersonal guilt, as conceived within control-mastery theory (CMT), and attachment, altruism, and personality pathology in an English-speaking sample. An online sample of 393 participants was recruited to complete the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale self-report version-15 (IGRS-15s), together with other empirically validated measures for the assessment of attachment, altruism, and personality pathology. On the basis of previous studies conducted in Italian-speaking samples, we hypothesized that survivor guilt, separation/disloyalty guilt, and omnipotent responsibility guilt would be associated with attachment anxiety and avoidance, altruism, and personality pathology; self-hate was hypothesized to be associated only with attachment anxiety and avoidance and personality pathology. Analyses examined bivariate associations as well as the network of partial correlations among variables. The results largely confirmed hypothesized associations, with self-hate evincing the strongest unique association with personality dysfunction. Findings provide a basis for further research regarding interpersonal guilt and personality and relational functioning, with potential implications for clinical conceptualizations of the role of guilt in psychopathology.

The Relationship between Theoretical Orientation and Countertransference Expectations: Implications for Ethical Dilemmas and Risk Management.

UNLABELLED: Countertransference (CT) awareness is widely considered valuable for differential diagnosis and the proactive management of ethical dilemmas. We predicted that the more practitioners' theoretical orientation (TO) emphasizes insight into the dynamics of subjective mental life, the better they will be at using their CT expectations in differential diagnosis with high-risk patients. To test this hypothesis, we compared psychodynamic therapy (PDT) practitioners who emphasize insight into subjective mental life with practitioners who do not emphasize this epistemology. Results indicated that PDT practitioners expected significantly more CT than practitioners of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and other practitioners (e.g., family systems, humanistic/existential and eclectic) to patients with borderline personality organization overall. PDT practitioners had significantly more CT expectations to patients with borderline-level pathologies as compared with neurotic-level patients than both CBT and other practitioners. PDT practitioners were significantly more expectant of CT issues than CBT practitioners with respect to the personality disorders most associated with acting out and risk management problems (e.g., paranoid, psychopathic, narcissistic, sadistic, sadomasochistic, masochistic, hypomanic, passive-aggressive, counterdependent and counterphobic). The other practitioners generally had CT expectations between PDT and CBT. These findings suggest that clinical training into CT may be useful in differential diagnoses and in helping to avoid ethical dilemmas regardless of one's theoretical preference. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEY PRACTITIONER MESSAGE: Insight into countertransference can be used to help with differential diagnoses and to help prevent possible management problems with acting out patients. The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual is a useful taxonomy in that it includes countertransference as a diagnostic aid.

Personality subtypes in adolescents with anorexia nervosa.

The aims of this study are to (1) empirically identify the personality subtypes of adolescents with anorexic disorders and (2) investigate the personality disorders, identity disturbances, and affective features associated with the different subtypes. We assessed 102 adolescent patients with Eating Disorders (anorexia nervosa and eating disorder not otherwise specified) using three clinical instruments: the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure for Adolescents (SWAP-200-A) (Westen D, Shedler J, Durrett C, Glass S, Martens A. Personality diagnoses in adolescence: DSM-IV Axis II diagnoses and an empirically derived alternative. Am J Psychiatry 2003;160:952-966), the Affective Regulation and Experience Questionnaire (AREQ) (Zittel Conklin C, Bradley R, Westen D. Affect regulation in borderline personality disorder. J Nerv Ment Dis 2006;194:69-77), and the Identity Disorder Questionnaire (IDQ) (Wilkinson-Ryan T, Westen D. Identity disturbance in borderline personality disorder: An empirical investigation. Am J Psychiatry 2000;157:528-541). We performed a Q factor analysis of the SWAP-200-A descriptions of our sample to identify personality subtypes. We correlated these personality styles with AREQ and IDQ factors and explored the personality differences among individuals with the different types of ED. The Q factor analysis identified three personality subtypes: high-functioning/perfectionist, emotionally dysregulated, and overcontrolled/constricted. Each subtype showed specific identity and affective features, comorbidities with different personality disorders, and clinical implications. These results contribute to the understanding of adolescents with ED and seem to be relevant for treatment planning.

Assessing Burdening Guilt and Its Correlates.

Burdening guilt refers to the belief that one's emotions, needs, and ways of being are a burden to others, and is one type of interpersonal guilt proposed by the control-mastery theory (CMT). The aim of this article is to validate two new measures of burdening guilt. In the two studies conducted, we examined the psychometric properties of these scales and the relationship between burdening guilt and self-perceived burden (burdensomeness), self-esteem, shame, anxiety, depression, mental health, attachment insecurity, adverse childhood experiences, social desirability, empathy, and suicidal ideation. In Study 1, we presented a newly developed Burdening Guilt Rating Scale (BGRS) and its correlation with measures of the abovementioned dimensions. In Study 2 we verified, through confirmatory factor analysis and correlation techniques, the possibility of expanding the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-15 with a shorter, 5-item burdening guilt scale derived from the BGRS, and showed that this shorter scale correlates similarly to the longer one. Findings allowed us to validate these new scales providing empirical measures of burdening guilt-a theoretical concept with important clinical implications.

The Plan Formulation Method from Control Mastery Theory and Management of Countertransference.

The aim of this article is to show how the plan formulation method (PFM), an empirically validated method for case formulation based on control mastery theory (CMT), can help clinicians make sense of and use what they feel during sessions to better understand and treat their patients. We give a brief overview of the main psychoanalytic conceptions about countertransference, provide a brief introduction to CMT, and describe the concept of the plan and the PFM. We then show, using several brief clinical examples, how the components of the plan (patient's goals, pathogenic beliefs, traumas, tests, and insights) may help understand clinicians' in-session feelings.

Progress in Psychotherapy: The Perspective of Control-Mastery Theory.

In the classical psychoanalytic tradition, the patient is seen as unconsciously governed by forces that are at odds with the healing process. But over the years, the concept of resistance against change has been subjected to modifications, and the patient's contribution to the therapeutic relationship has come to be seen as more oriented to a conscious and unconscious collaboration with the clinician. This article aims to explore a new way of understanding how progress in psychotherapy is achieved and to reframe the therapeutic relationship from the point of view of Control-Mastery Theory (CMT). According to CMT, people are motivated to achieve adaptive goals, to master their traumas, and to feel better; to this purpose, patients unconsciously assume proactive roles in the therapeutic process. Indeed, they work during therapy to disprove their pathogenic beliefs, testing them in the therapeutic relationship, and helping the therapist through coaching behaviors, attitudes, and communications aimed at providing helpful information to understand the components of their own unconscious plan.

[Hikikomori: the silent suffering among young people]. / Hikikomori: la sofferenza silenziosa dei giovani.

The Japanese term hikikomori is used to describe young people who lives a condition characterized by social withdrawal and isolation for an extended period of time. It is a particularly widespread phenomenon in Japan, in particular among adolescents and adults, and it represented the focus of an increasing attention from mental health professionals in many other countries, including Italy. The aim of this paper review is to explore the concept of hikikomori within Japanese sociocultural context, epidemiological aspects, risk factors clinical characteristics. Moreover, some theoretical models are discussed which allow possible interpretations of this condition which characterizes young people who convey their suffering more and more silently. A detailed review of the phenomenon is given considering the lack of a clear definition of the hikikomori that doesn't allow to plan preventive interventions.

Patients' crying experiences in psychotherapy and relationship with working alliance, therapeutic change and attachment styles.

Crying may be a beneficial experience and reflect a patients' involvement in the therapeutic work, as well as a potential indicator of the healing process. This study explored the relationships between patients' crying experience in therapy, their perception of working alliance and therapeutic change, as well as considering the role of attachment styles. One hundred six patients completed a survey about crying in psychotherapy and self-report measures for assessing working alliance, therapeutic change, and attachment styles. Concerning general crying experiences, results showed that when patients' crying (even if painful) was followed by more positive or less negative emotions (i.e., a sense of relief), they perceived the working alliance more positively and therapeutic change as enhanced. Similarly, regarding their most recent crying episode, patients' feeling of crying as a positive (albeit often painful) experience was related with a better perception of working alliance and therapeutic change. In relation to variance explained by patient attachment style, our results are quite limited and secondary to the findings on crying-related experiences, working alliance and therapeutic change. However, when attachment style did contribute significantly to a regression model, results indicated that for patients with high dismissing attachment concerns, crying in a context of a good working alliance may represent both a useful process for reducing negative emotions and an indicator of good therapeutic outcome. Clinical and empirical implications are discussed in terms of the relevance of the therapeutic crying experience on the quality of working alliance and therapeutic change. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Guilt, Shame, Empathy, Self-Esteem, and Traumas: New Data for the Validation of the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-15 Self-Report (IGRS-15s).

The aim of this paper is to present further data for the validation of the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-15 self-report (IGRS-15s; Gazzillo et al., 2018). We recruited a sample of 448 subjects, to whom we administered the IGRS-15s together with other empirically validated measures for the assessment of social desirability, shame, self-esteem, empathy, mental health and therapeutic alliance. In line with our hypotheses, the previously established three-factor structure of the IGRS-15s (Survivor guilt, Omnipotence guilt, and Self-hate) was confirmed. Moreover, the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of IGRS-15s were adequate to good. All the IGRS-15s factors were negatively correlated with self-esteem and mental health and positively correlated with shame; Survivor guilt and Omnipotence guilt were positively correlated with empathy; Survivor guilt and Self-hate negatively affected therapeutic alliance; and different traumas had different, theoretically predictable, impacts on the different kinds of guilt. Overall, these data support the reliability and validity of the IGRS-15s.

Traumas and Their Consequences According to Control-Mastery Theory.

The aim of this article is to introduce the reader to how control-mastery theory (CMT; Gazzillo, 2016; Silberschatz, 2005; Weiss, 1993), an integrative relational cognitive-dynamic theory of mental functioning, psychopathology, and psychotherapeutic process, understands traumas, their consequences, and their mastery. In the first part of this article, we will present an overview of the debate about the definition of trauma within the different editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Then, we will focus on the concept of complex traumas and on their consequences on mental health. Finally, we will discuss how CMT conceptualizes traumas and their pathological consequences. We will stress in particular how, according to CMT, in order for a painful experience to become a trauma, its victim has to come to believe that s/he caused it in the attempt to pursue a healthy and adaptive goal. In order to master traumas and disprove the pathogenic beliefs developed from them, people attempt to reexperience situations similar to the traumatic ones in safer conditions while giving them happier endings.

Plan-compatible termination in psychotherapy: Perspectives from control-mastery theory.

Termination processes in psychotherapy vary widely across patients, therapists, and therapies. While general guidelines on termination can inform ethical and responsible termination practices, termination decisions and processes are likely optimized using a case-specific approach. Control-mastery theory (CMT) provides a framework for considering the unique ways individual patients work in psychotherapy and can be applied to help therapists understand and facilitate optimal terminations. The present article provides a brief overview of CMT and outlines perspectives regarding the decision-making and discussion of psychotherapy termination, the processing of termination, and the final session of therapy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Personality Organization, Personality Styles, and the Emotional Reactions of Treating Clinicians.

This study explores the relationship between clinicians' emotional reactions and patients' level of personality organization and personality style assessed according to the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual-2 (Lingiardi & McWilliams, 2017). Level of personality pathology was positively associated with helpless and overwhelmed responses and negatively with positive responses. Parental and disengaged responses were associated with schizoid, anxious and dependent personalities. Parental and criticized responses were associated with narcissistic personalities; their depressed versions were positively associated with parental reactions, but negatively with positive reactions. Parental and overwhelmed responses were associated with counter-dependent and passive-aggressive dependent personalities; the latter also with criticized reactions. Disengaged responses were associated with depressive personalities, particularly with their introjective subtypes, obsessive-compulsive and somatizing personalities. Overwhelmed reactions were associated with relational self-defeating and hysterical/histrionic personalities, the latter also with sexualized reactions. Sexualized and helpless reactions were connected to hypomanic personalities. Findings show that emotional reactions can be useful for understanding personality features.

Preliminary Data about the Validation of a Self-Report for the Assessment of Interpersonal Guilt: The Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scales-15s (IGRS-15s).

The aim of this article is to present validation data about a self-report rating scale for the assessment of interpersonal guilt according to Control-Mastery Theory (CMT; Silbershatz, 2005; Weiss, 1993; Weiss, Sampson, & The Mount Zion Psychotherapy Research Group, 1986), the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-15s (IGRS-15s). In order to perform the validation of this tool in an Italian sample we have collected a sample of 645 nonclinical subjects. They had to complete the IGRS-15s, the Scale for the Measurement of the Impending Punishment (SMIP; Caprara et al., 1990), the Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire-67 (IGQ-67; O'Connor et al., 1997), the Psychological General Well-Being Index (PGWBI; Dupuy, 1984), and the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS; Davis, Panksepp, & Normansell, 2003), together with an ad-hoc questionnaire for collecting demographic data, the Socio-Demographical Schedule. We have performed a confirmatory factor analysis to verify if the four-factor solution based on CMT and replicated in previous research (Gazzillo et al., 2017) was confirmed. Then, we checked the retest reliability of IGRS-15s after four weeks in a random subsample of 54 subjects. In order to assess its concurrent and discriminant validity, we calculated the correlations between IGRS-15s assessment and SMIP and IGQ-67. Finally, to test its construct validity, we assessed the relationships between the IGRS-15s and the affective systems using the ANPS and the wellbeing assessed with the PGWBI. The data collected support the retest reliability and the concurrent and discriminant validity of the measure, and we have collected preliminary data about its construct validity. Examples of the possible clinical and research applications of this tool are discussed.

Patients' crying experiences in psychotherapy: Relationship with the patient level of personality organization, clinician approach, and therapeutic alliance.

The present study sought to further understand patients' crying experiences in psychotherapy. We asked 64 clinicians to randomly request one patient in their practice to complete a survey concerning crying in psychotherapy as well as a measure of therapeutic alliance. All clinicians provided information regarding their practice and patient diagnostic information. Fifty-five (85.93%) patients cried at least once, and 18 (28.1%) had cried during their most recent session. Patients' frequency of crying episodes in therapy was negatively related with psychotic level of personality organization, while patients' tendency to feel more negative feelings after crying was positively related to lower levels of personality organization. Patients' feeling more in control after crying was positively related with an interpersonal therapeutic approach, while patients' perception of therapists as more supportive after crying was positively related to a psychodynamic approach. Patients' tendency to experience more negative feelings after crying was significantly related with both lower levels of personality organization and patients' perception of the therapeutic alliance as weak. In regard to their most recent crying event in treatment, therapeutic alliance was related to gaining a new understanding of experience not previously recognized by the patient. Further, patients' experiences of having never told anyone about their experience related to a crying episode, as well as their realization of new ideas and feeling of having communicated something that words could not express was positively related to the goal dimension of alliance. Patients' perception of crying as a moment of genuine vulnerability, greater feelings of self-confidence and self-disclosure as well as having had a therapist response that was compassionate and supportive, was positively related with the bond dimension of alliance. Clinical implications and future research directions regarding patient crying experiences in psychotherapy are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Reliability and Validity of the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-15: A New Clinician-Reporting Tool for Assessing Interpersonal Guilt According to Control-Mastery Theory.

This article introduces the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-15 (IGRS-15), a brief clinician-rated tool for the clinical assessment of interpersonal guilt as conceived in Control-Mastery Theory (CMT; Silberschatz, 2015; Weiss, 1993), and its psychometric proprieties. The items of the IGRS-15 were derived from the CMT clinical and empirical literature about guilt, and from the authors' clinical experiences. Twenty-eight clinicians assessed 154 patients with the IGRS-15, the patient self-reported Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire-67 (IGQ-67; O'Connor, Berry, Weiss, Bush, & Sampson, 1997), and the Clinical Data Form (CDF; Westen & Shedler, 1999). A semi-exploratory factor analysis pointed to a four-factor solution in line with the kinds of guilt described in CMT: Survivor guilt, Separation/disloyalty guilt, Omnipotent responsibility guilt, and Self-hate. The test-retest reliability of the IGRS-15 was good. Moreover, the IGRS-15 showed good concurrent and discriminant validity with the IGQ-67. IGRS-15 represents a first step in the direction of supporting the clinical judgment about interpersonal guilt with an empirically sound and easy-to-use tool.