Many of us who practise long-term, reconstructive psychotherapy are familiar with a particular kind of patient: someone who progresses well in understanding and ability to observe transference reactions to the therapist, but who none the less seems to be refusing to change. This paper follows the treatment of one such patient who seemed determined not to give up his passive way of relating to his psychotherapy group and the world, even after the dynamics of the self-destructive passivity had long since become clear to him. A new concept, called the `push against progressing' is used to help understand the dynamics of this `refusal', and how to treat it.
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References
1.
Bar-Levav, R.
(1988) Thinking in the Shadow of Feelings. New York: Simon and Schuster.
