The Psychoanalytic Treatment of Criminal Offenders (Psychoanalysis, Resistance, External)

Psychotherapy

May 2021

Full Citation

Davis, D. S. (1984). The Psychoanalytic Treatment of Criminal Offenders (Psychoanalysis, Resistance, External) (Doctoral dissertation, Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities).

Abstract

This PDE consists of the conceptualization, implementation, and analysis of a four year federally contracted psychoanalytic treatment program emphasizing the technical utilization of the concept of external resistance. This was accomplished at the Philadelphia Consultation Center and it still exists there although the author no longer has any function with it. It seems as if this was a successful program now entering its sixth year.

This program can be viewed as an experiment in the extendability of psychoanalytic treatment technique beyond its traditional confines. The contracting and continuing interaction with the contracting third party, the United States Court, is conceptualized as intervening with the external resistance of the client. This has been relatively untapped class of resistance in psychoanalytic treatment.

The method and history of the contracting is described. The background and composition of the staff is assessed. Basic demographics of the 175 client population are provided. The psychoanalytic theory of the technique of the treatment of these criminal offenders emphasizing the initial presenting treatment destructive external resistance is discussed within the context of the program data. A comparison of the range and sequence of psychoanalytic intervention with external resistances presented with clients in the three broad diagnostic categories of psychotic, psychoneurotic, and personality disordered clients is undertaken in the context of case examples. The work concludes with a recommendation of continued work and research in this area.