Stressful involvement in psychotherapeutic work: therapist, client and process correlates.

We examined potential predictors of therapists' "Stressful Involvement" (SI) among variables reflecting the psychotherapy process, therapist characteristics, patients' symptom severity or context variables (treatment setting). Ninety-eight sequences from individual psychodynamic treatments conducted by 26 therapists were studied. Data were analyzed using mixed regression models. Between-therapist and within-therapist variance accounted for most of the difference in SI. SI was strongly associated with negative feelings of the therapist about patient and therapy in the time between sessions. Therapists with more 'unassertive' and 'vindictive' interpersonal styles were also more prone to experiencing SI. The strong association of SI with therapist rather than patient characteristics and process ratings indicates the importance of further study of the therapist as a person and participant in psychotherapy.

[Consolation as medical intervention and its history of ideas]. / Trost und Trösten als arztliche Aufgabe: Geistesgeschichtliche Grundlagen.

A review of interpretations of "suffering" was presented after an etymological clarification of the term "consolation". The review begins with an examination of concepts of consolation in the early Greek and Roman antiquity continues with late Greek and Roman antiquity, the early and late Middle Ages, the epochs of Humanism and Reformation and the time after Reformation until to the present. Concerning concepts of consolation in the present the conception of the movement "Biblical Therapeutic Pastoral Care", Viktor Frankl's "Logotherapy" and Viktor Emil von Gebsattel's "Anthropologic Psychotherapy" are discussed. Finally, some essential features of general conceptions of consolation are presented.