The reunion process: A new focus in short-term dynamic psychotherapy

Short-term dynamic psychotherapy (STDP) has established itself as an effective treatment for common psychological disorders, but little attention has been given to cases of treatment failure or relapse. In this article, I present a case of relapsing panic disorder. I suggest that STDP has focused mainly on the memories of disturbing past experience, but we have not systematically explored the positive memories of early attachment experiences. The negative memories are explored and processed until they are revised, resulting in less disturbing versions of the original events and new meanings for the patient. In the language of memory research, the patient has now established more than one memory trace of a particular situation, and the therapist hopes that the newer version will have "trace dominance"; that is, it will be the memory that governs the patient's behavior. In a new model called the reunion process, the therapist helps the patient reactivate and strengthen these distress associated with negative memories and experiences. positive memories to revise the internal working models of early attachment figures. The process also involves the use of imagined attachment scenarios that never actually happened to compensate for gaps in historical experience. The result is a sense of reunion with the patient's parents, and the internalization of an affect-regulating process to calm the distress associated with negative memories and experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).