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Purpose
This thesis will develop a Gestalt understanding of narcissistic behaviour and experience and the psychotherapeutic treatment of narcissistic patients, building on Gary Yontef's work in this area. Various contributions to theoretical understanding and clinical treatment will be examined, principally from the D.S.M. IV and from psychoanalysts such as Mancia, Symington, Kohut, Kernberg and Hamilton. Consideration will be given as to how much can be integrated from the medical model of psychological distress and from the psychoanalysts into a Gestalt understanding of and approach to narcissistic patients.
Plan
Section One will briefly relate the myth of Narcissus.
Section Two will briefly describe the roots of Gestalt Psychotherapy and go on to examine the therapeutic relationship therein, making particular reference to dialogue, the I-Thou attitude and the I-Thou moment, presence, contact, awareness, confirmation, inclusion, authenticity, the phenomenological method, transference and counter-transference.
Section Three will begin to describe a Gestalt understanding of narcissistic styles of relating and experiencing and will touch upon Carl Hodges' Field Theory and the choice of language which Gestalt psychotherapists may use in describing narcissistic behaviour and experience. Yontef's advocacy of Gestalt psychotherapist's learning from 'the distilled wisdom of the fie1d' (1993) whilst also remaining committed to dialogue and the phenomenological method is stated.
Section Four will describe the range of narcissistic experience, from primary and healthy narcissism (subsection one), to narcissistic traits and style (subsection two), to Narcissistic Personality Disorder, as described in the D.S.M. 1V (subsection three). The 'distilled wisdom' to which Yontef refers will be drawn upon in this section, particular reference being made to Freud (1914) and Johnson (1987). At the end of each subsection, the Gestalt understanding of the narcissistic experience will be described.
Section Five will examine Yontef's contribution to a Gestalt understanding of narcissistic experience and the treatment of narcissistic patients.
Section Six will examine various psychoanalytic contributions: Mancia (1993), Symington (1993), Kohut (1971), Kernberg (1975) and Hamilton (1982). At the end of each subsection the possibility of an integration of the contribution into Gestalt Psychotherapeutic understanding and practice will be considered.
Section Seven will be a conclusion, which summarises the main points of the dissertation.
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