In conclusion, it appears to this therapist that working through a semi-symbiotic union is a useful and perhaps essential therapy technique with both schizophrenic and borderline patients. The essential ingredients of this technique include: (1) open expression of feelings by the therapist; (2) consistency and reliability by the therapist; (3) understanding and acceptance of schizophrenic jargon; (4) acceptance of the patient's ambivalent feelings about closeness and distance and allowing distancing tactics; (5) interpreting and working through distancing needs as an on-going process -- understanding that they generally indicate both fear of rejection and of incorporation; (6) acceptance of a long-term semi-symbiotic responsibility to the patient; (7) expression of the therapist's own legitimate limits and of his inability to meet all the patient's needs; (8) allowing and encouraging the patient the freedom to grow toward increasing independence with security.

Empathy↗

PubMed1975

Support groups for women in medical school: a first-year program.

This report presents a workable model for a support system for first-year women medical students at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. The students met in small groups at weekly intervals with women faculty members from the Department of Psychiatry throughout the academic year. Role conflicts which confront these young women professionals entering a "masculine" field as a minority group are described. There is an elaboration of those factors, both personal and institutional, which serve either to promote or deter conflict resolution and the acquisition of a satisfactory professional and female identity. A discussion of group formation and processes and a year-end evaluation are included. Both students and faculty assessed the program as having provided a needed and constructive setting in which to explore the problems and identities of women professionals and to develop close supportive relationships with women colleagues.

Adaptation, Psychological↗