The purpose of this study was to examine interpersonal problems and its relationship to the working alliance in psychotherapy. To examine this, data was used from Umeå and Lund University psychology practice client database, which clients responded to by using the self-assessment scales Inventory of Interpersonal Problems Circumplex Scales and the Working Alliance Inventory. The sample consisted of 201 participants that answered the questionnaires both before and after psychotherapy. A second sample consisted of 93 clients who specifically sought help for interpersonal problems. Results showed that the level of interpersonal problems before and after psychotherapy changes.

The aim of this study was to examine what factors experienced psychotherapists emphasize as central and change developing in psychotherapy. The intention was to highlight the therapists' personal thoughts and experiences of psychotherapeutic change. By personal interviews with three cognitive and three psychodynamic psychotherapists, data was retrieved and then analysed with a qualitative phenomenological and hermeneutical approach. The study revealed great accordance between the psychotherapists regarding the importance of therapeutic relationship, factors connected to therapeutic treatment and flexibility regarding to the method of treatment. Moreover, it has been revealed that psychotherapeutic change in both treatments of psychotherapy is due to integration between emotional and cognitive processes.

The working alliance between therapist and client has been proven important for the treatment outcome in psychotherapy, as well as the therapist?s characteristics. The aim of the current study was to examine the experience of important characteristics when forming a working alliance, among psychotherapy trainees. Eight psychotherapy trainees at Umeå University were interviewed and the material was analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Characteristics described as positively impacting the working alliance were interested, empathic, warm, genuine, secure, flexible and accepting.

This paper aims to describe and discuss psychotherapy in rhetorical terms; in particular how psychotherapists can use their ethos, or person, as a means for convincing the patient, and subsequently discuss how these insights in turn can be useful for other rhetors.Classical rhetoric is commonly associated with one speaker exercising influence on an audience of many, but modern rhetoric is broader, and includes all situations where someone is attempting, by speech or in writing, to affect anyone, including the rhetor himself. With this broader definition, psychotherapy may also be considered a form of rhetoric. Psychotherapy does, however, highlight the aspect of power distribution, in that it is clear that it is up to the patient to determine whether the rhetoric will achieve its purpose or not, that is, if he will be influenced by it. In psychotherapy, it is also important to differentiate between persuading and convincing: for a permanent change to occur in the patient?s thoughts and actions, the deeper, "internal" form of conviction is necessary for change to take place.When attempting to convince an audience, it is important for the speaker to establish a credible ethos, that is, present a trustworthy persona.

AbstractAim: The aim of this study was to describe cancer patients? experiences of quality of life and wellbeing in relation to yoga practice.Method: A descriptive qualitative study with semi structured interviews was carried out during the fall of 2009 at the University of Uppsala. Informants in the study were cancer patients who were participating in the yoga/psychotherapy group at the clinic of oncology at the Akademiska hospital in Uppsala.Result: Five out of six informants experienced that their quality of life and their wellbeing improved by practicing yoga. One informant had mixed feelings which were not due to the yoga practicing, but to the place where it was practiced. For her this place was associated with illness.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine from a psychoanalytic point of view how Mare Kandre narrate the complex process when girl becomes woman. Earlier theoretical work concerning Mare Kandre is sparse and limited to narrow cut-outs of her authorship. There are two dissertations, but none with Kandre and her unique fictional works alone in focus. Most frequently she is presented as part of different groups of authors.

Inledning: Eftersom den psykodynamiska psykoterapin har kraftig konkurrens från andra terapiformer, samtidigt som kraven på effektivitet, snabbhet och evidens från hälso- och sjukvårdsetablissemanget är starka, är det viktigt att som psykodynamiker delta i diskursen kring den psykodynamiska psykoterapins vetenskapsteoretiska status. Hur kan man karakterisera den psykodynamiska psykoterapin om den dels inte är identisk med psykoanalys, dels heller inte automatiskt kan inordnas i det medicinsk-biologiska paradigmet? Uppsatsen har som syfte att definiera och undersöka om psykodynamisk psykoterapi kan betraktas som behandling och/eller en moralisk etisk praxis.Frågeställningar: Psykodynamisk psykoterapi ? är den en egen humanvetenskap? Hur kan man definiera och se på behandling och behandlingsmål i den psykodynamiska psykoterapin?Metod: Litteraturstudie med en hermeneutisk ansats.Resultat: Det finns olika sätt att se på den psykodynamiska psykoterapin när det gäller dess vetenskaplighet. Frågan om psykodynamisk psykoterapi är behandling i gängse medicinsk bemärkelse, har heller inget enkelt entydigt svar. Till synen på behandling hör också målet med densamma.

Approximately one third of all patients in primary care have a psychosocial component to their illness that requires adequate professional treatment. However, primary care is insufficiently prepared for these patients. The aim of this case-study was to evaluate a pilot project in primary care offering psychotherapy as a treatment alternative. The data collected includes 1) data from 352 referred patients regarding demographics, diagnosis, treatment duration and pre- and post health status, 2) a patient-satisfaction questionnaire and 3) interviews with six therapists and five medical doctors. The treated patients improved significantly and showed a high degree of satisfaction.

The aim of this study is to explore the fundaments of all psychoanalytic interpretative models, and especially the psychoanalytic literary criticism. Drawing from different fields as affect theory, neuropsychology and Lacan's structural psychoanalysis, strong evidence is found that language in itself contains and transmits affects.The empiric study indicates that different readers of a text, regardless of their interpretation of the text, show similar changes in mood as a function of the text. This seems to be possible as an effect of the separation of the sign between the signifier and the signification. And this supports that the signifier has some kind of direct access to the affects. This is due to the fact that the signifier belongs to the imaginary protolinguistic level while the signification belongs to the symbolic and linguistic level of a higher order.

The purpose of this study is to show what melancholy and irony in my poems express and what techniques that are used to accomplish these effects. Many theorists, among them Sigmund Freud and Julia Kristeva, characterize melancholy as an experience of loss, and therefore one of my questions is what kind of losses appear in my poetry. In search for an answer I analyze the texts from both a psychoanalytic and a sociological point of view. In the latter perspective I discuss the postmodern society using concepts from contemporary thinkers like Zygmunt Bauman, Fredric Jameson and Jean Baudrillard. Finally, I also examine if melancholy has an influence on the form of the poems.

The gender theory of Judith Butler is based on both philosophical and psychoanalytic notions of the self. Although greatly inspired by both early and contemporary psychoanalytic thinking, Butler has also questioned some of its core notions such as the meaning of gender complementarity and conceptions of desire. In a dialogue in Studies in Gender and Sexuality she discusses these and other theoretical and ethical issues with the influential psychoanalyst and gender theorist Jessica Benjamin. The exchange is a unique example of an attempt at dialogue and theoretical reflection between a prominent contemporary gender theorist and psychoanalyst. It reveals disagreements and theoretical difficulties I will show to be directly attributable to radical differences between Butler's and Benjamin's conceptions of the self.

The aim of this essay is to examine which help a group of women with eating disorders had from thier treatment in daycare in 2004. The aim is to examine how the women have experienced this treatment and how they live today. The central questions are: what was their life situation like before the treatment, what was their experience of the treatment, how could the treatment have been better and how are their lives today? The method is based on qualitative interviews with seven women who were all in the same treatment for eight weeks at Capio AnorexiCenter in Malmö. The women have also redone tests that were done right before and right after the treatment.

The purpose of this study is to show what melancholy and irony in my poems express and what techniques that are used to accomplish these effects. Many theorists, among them Sigmund Freud and Julia Kristeva, characterize melancholy as an experience of loss, and therefore one of my questions is what kind of losses appear in my poetry. In search for an answer I analyze the texts from both a psychoanalytic and a sociological point of view. In the latter perspective I discuss the postmodern society using concepts from contemporary thinkers like Zygmunt Bauman, Fredric Jameson and Jean Baudrillard. Finally, I also examine if melancholy has an influence on the form of the poems.

The aim of this paper was to illuminate the effect of mentalizationbased psychotherapy. The patients in the survey group were interviewed before and after treatment with regard to specific symptoms of borderline personality disorder and symptoms of other personality disorders with the semi structured interviews ZAN-BPD and SCID-II. Open interview questions that were worked up in a qualitative manner were as well put to the patients that had received the treatment program. A focus group interview with the staff working with the concept within the frame of the MBT-team of Psychiatry southwest in Stockholm was also carried out. The result shows on a group level between the pre and post measuring a reduction of specific borderline symptoms like impulsivity and cognitive symptoms.

Socialstyrelsen har konstaterat att äldres psykiska hälsa är ett eftersatt område, trots att många äldre drabbas av psykiska besvär, och efterlyser behandlingsalternativ till medicinering. Man konstaterar samtidigt att det saknas undersökningar av effekten av psykoterapi för personer i högre åldrar, något som delvis kan bero på att många studier har en åldersgräns på 75 år. Tidigare studier visar också att psykoterapeuter föredrar att ta emot yngre patienter i psykoterapeutisk behandling. Studien är en beskrivning av några psykoterapeuters upplevelser av det psykoterapeutiska arbetet med personer som är 75 år och äldre.Sju psykoterapeuter intervjuades i denna kvalitativa undersökning där datainsamling skedde genom semistrukturerade intervjuer som analyserades med tematisk analys. Det som upplevs vara vanligast förekommande tema för denna åldersgrupp är förluster och skam kopplat till detta.