Judaism and psychotherapy

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No abstract text is available yet for this article.

This paper raises halachic issues regarding psychotherapy and honoring parents. A recognized halachic authority was asked to respond to a clinical case that involved the psychological treatment of a college student sexually abused by her father, where an important aspect of treatment focused on helping her discover and express her anger towards the offending parent instead of suppressing and internalizing it. Ramifications of the rabbi's ruling are summarized by an halachic scholar.

Hallucinations that occur predominantly at night are reported in 122 out of a sample of 302 ultra-orthodox Jewish Israeli men referred for psychiatric evaluation. Demographic data and the content of a semistructured interview in 302 ultra-orthodox Jewish young men seen over a 10-year period in Jerusalem were evaluated retrospectively by two researchers. Of the 302 subjects, 122 reported hallucinations predominantly at night, 23 reported hallucinations with no diurnal variation, and 157 did not report hallucinations...

The article gives an inside look at a case where posttraumatic stress is intertwined with disturbances in object relations and ego-identity. The patient was a victim of a brutal authoritarian father who had abused her sexually. The trauma left her powerless and isolated. The treatment was aimed at enabling the patient to achieve connection and empowerment. Hypnotherapy, psychoanalytic psychotherapy and hypnosis allowed the patient to understand and overcome symptoms and underlying conflicts in the context of the therapeutic relationship...

This paper explores the issues that arise when psychotherapists and patients do not share a common value system. Using three case studies of ultra-Orthodox Jewish patients who hold religious values and beliefs, the paper illustrataes and defines a strategy of "value-sensitive therapy." It argues for treating patients without demeaning or discounting their values and beliefs.

The somewhat unorthodox working guidelines and professional attitudes of an ultra-orthodox (UO) psychotherapist are presented. Despite relatively low status in the UO society, the UO therapist can contribute much to UO society: by enhancing individuals' religious, as well as, general functioning, and by serving as a consultant to rabbinical and community leaders. Ensuing from the centrality of religion in the therapist's life, usual therapy norms and parameters may be abrogated or modified in the direction of increased stringency (eg, in avoiding sexual misconduct and subtle forms of "robbery") or leniency (eg, extra-therapeutic helpfulness)...

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The article deals with the problem of administering therapy in multicultural settings where the therapist and the patient hold divergent explanatory models in regard to the patient's symptoms. Different conceptualizations of the universal structure of symbolic healing stress the importance of therapist-patient compatibility for therapeutic success. In order to reach this compatibility, strategic therapists seek to join the patients' explanatory models and employ metaphors and symbols derived from their cultural world...

The Hebrew term Pardes has two meanings in Jewish study: the Paradise entered by four eminent Rabbis in search of mystical truth, and PaRDeS, four levels of interpreting Biblical texts. By combining the legend of Pardes with the hermeneutic system of PaRDeS, a psychological theory is presented as a set of propositions which endeavor to demonstrate the following: 1) The combination of Pardes and PaRDeS may be used as a bridge between the rational and mystic approaches to life and death. 2) The rational and the mystic stages each contain two phases: the negative break and the positive possibility of the symbolic "forty years old" more mature active remedy...

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The concept of conversion disorder as a change in somatic function that symbolically represents an unconscious conflict is currently challenged in the literature. In this article, the author elaborates on the psychodynamic concept of conversion and defines its characteristics and mode of diagnosis. The usefulness of this approach is demonstrated in a detailed case presentation of a brief, active psychodynamic psychotherapy of six sessions that led to the rapid disappearance of symptoms. In particular, the metaphoric meanings of the physical symptoms were interpreted and followed by an immediate disappearance of symptoms...

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This article presents and discusses: (a) some of the diagnostic and psychotherapeutic problems which emerged when dealing with extremely religious Jewish young men; and (b) conscious ethical questions and unperceived counter-transference reactions to religion and religious patients which may overburden the therapist's helping capacity, thereby curtailing the beneficial extent of his intervention. The setting of the therapeutic process is an open intensive care unit. The possible implications and effects of carrying out institutional therapy with this particular kind of patient are also analysed...

Current therapies, their theories and techniques ebb and flow in popularity, but there is a residue of basic principles and practices which remain. Much of this useful residue has been present in ancient Eastern religions and philosophies. This article compares the content of several current theories of individual, group, and family therapies to seed ideas in ancient Taoist, Zen, Confucian, yoga, and Buddhist source materials. Gestalt, existential, psychoanalytic, transactional analysis, cognitive-behavioral and family therapy concepts are traced to these ancient precursors...

In this paper, I have examined in some detail a number of examples of actual and potential consensus between Jewish ethics and the practice of modern psychotherapy, psychology, and psychiatry. Moreover, I have posited specific halakhic models which represent analogies to modern psychotherapeutic principles and practices, which through analogy lend specific halakhic guidelines to modern practice. The unitary halakhic approach presented here is thus both heuristic--in that it seeks to demonstrate the ways in which psychotherapeutic processes are essentially halakhic ones--as well as practical...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.