The goal of Transference Focused Therapy - TFP (aka Kernberg Therapy) is to make the person with borderline borderline more stable and realistic about their relationship with other people. This is achieved by reducing the symptoms associated with borderline personality disorder and by altering the patient's character structure. As a result, it should significantly improve the level of his daily functioning. So read on for what transference focused therapy - TFP is all about.
Transference Focused Therapy (TFP, Kernberg Therapy ) helps facilitate the functioning of patients with borderline personality disorder. This is done by alleviating the symptoms associated with the problem and bringing about changes in character. Find out how the Kernberg method works.
Within psychodynamic therapy (one of the trends in psychotherapy), there isKernberg's therapy , which in specialist terminology is referred to astransfer-focused therapy( TFP , an abbreviation of EnglishTransference-Focused Psychotherapy ). Its main creator is the psychoanalyst Otto F. Kernberg, professor of psychiatry at the American Cornell University.
Transference focused therapy is used to treat patients with personality disorders, especially those with borderline disorder.
Transference Focused Therapy (TFP): Assumptions
According to Otto Kernberg's assumptions, people with a normal personality structure have the ability to objectively interpret themselves, other people and interpersonal relationships. Such people can see contrasts and notice subtle differences in human behavior. With borderline personality disorder, there are problems with defining yourself and others. Patients with this disorder treat and classify people, their behavior and related phenomena as clearly good or bad (this type of situation is called splitting and is one of the so-called primitive defense mechanisms).
Other problems related todefense mechanisms are projection (assigning other people their characteristics or opinions - usually negative) and idealization (e.g. splitting the character of a loved one into two parts - good, which is ex alted, and bad, whose existence is denied).
People with borderline borderline disorder can enter into fragile romantic relationships - the reason for short relationships is that patients can easily shift from adoring their loved one to hating them. In addition, they are irritable and changeable in feelings due to the feeling of emptiness (it is related to insufficient identification of their own self). People with borderline disease may try to fill it up by engaging in risky behaviors such as substance abuse or gambling.
The main assumption of psychodynamic therapy (including TFP therapy) is that people's behavior is driven by internal mechanisms that people are not aware of. The role of the psychotherapist conducting this type of therapy is to make the patient aware of these factors, as well as to extract seemingly forgotten memories and convince them to express their emotions or ideas.
TFP therapy goals
The goal of TFP (Kernberg) therapy is to lead to:
- integration of the image of oneself and other people,
- educating the correct interpretation of the experienced feelings,
- understanding defense mechanisms.
The phenomenon of transference plays a very important role in this therapy. Generally speaking, it is the (unconscious) transfer of feelings towards other people onto the person of the psychotherapist. Transference-focused therapy assumes that in the course of the relationship established with the psychotherapist, the patient behaves in the same way as towards other people at home and at work. The patients are not aware of the existence of transference and the feelings related to them - the therapist at the appropriate moments of the meeting is to keep the patient's attention in the face of their feelings, which is to allow the patient to analyze them and - most importantly - to understand them.
TFP psychodynamic therapy for borderline personality disorder does not rely on the patient talking and the therapist being silent. On the contrary, the therapy focused on transference is one of the techniques of psychotherapy in which the active participation of the psychotherapist is significant.
Worth knowingBefore starting TFP therapy
The initiation of transference-focused therapy is preceded by a series of consultations, during which the diagnosis of the disorder is confirmedborderline personality disorder and it is determined which problems with the spectrum of this disorder dominate in a given patient. The first stage is the signing of a specific contract between the therapist and the patient (it defines both the scope of the patient's work on himself and the psychotherapist's duties). Kernberg's therapy sessions are held twice a week, the exact duration of treatment depends on the needs of the person being treated.