February 15, 2010

Dear Colleagues,

Happy Valentine's Day, Happy Chinese New Year, and Happy President's Day. We are busily gearing up for the 23rd International Conference on Control Mastery Theory beginning March 1. We still have space available, particularly for local attendees who can come for all or even some of the classes. We are very flexible. For new attendees, we offer an intensive study of transcripts from a psychoanalytic case for two hours every morning. In this seminar, we pay attention to nuances of shifts in patient material. We study how the patient acts following therapist interventions in ways that may represent a response to a passed or failed test, or may represent the patient presenting a new test. For returnees, we have opportunities to discuss your cases with experienced faculty every morning. We have a range of new, exciting classes in the afternoons in addition to core seminars that cover the basics of Control Mastery Theory. We continue to offer free one-on-one supervision sessions for participants on Thursday afternoons. Read On

Thanks to Our Superb Faculty:

SFPRG is able to sponsor such high-quality programs because we have a strong group of committed clinicians who routinely donate their time and expertise. As an organization that is fueled mainly by the generous efforts of its members, SFPRG is very fortunate to have teaching support from a wide and well-respected group of clinicians. Whether a year-long case consultation, a weekend seminar, research study groups or the week-long International Conference, all our activities rely on our members un-reimbursed time. For this we cant express our appreciation enough. Thank you for your specific contributions to SFPRGs membership and to the evolution of the field. Read On

We are excited about our upcoming International Conference the first week of March. It kicks off with an intensive one day Introductory course on the last Saturday of February. Our committee will have members on hand during the week to welcome attendees, answer questions, help with renewal and new memberships at our Membership Table which will be set up in the kitchen at #9 Funston. Stop by, renew, become a member and chat.

After the news broke about Tiger Woods' sexual escapades, I became increasingly annoyed at how often the unconscious motives of celebrities were routinely "explained" by an ignorant media. I wrote an essay about it entitled "Everything You Know About Tiger Woods is Wrong, So Shut the F*** Up!" (you can find this link on my website, www.michaelbader.com. Click the link below Just go to "author" and then scroll down to "links to articles"). Anyway, then the coverage turned to Woods' "sexual addiction," an increasingly common diagnosis applied to celebrities and politicians who screw up. Not only does it provide them "cover," for their behavior, but it seemed to me to be a rather elusive diagnosis, invariably leading us away from thinking more deeply about the meaning of sexual fantasy and behavior. So, i wrote this essay. Both of these were published on a progressive website called Alternet.org

I have been following George Silberschatz's research with great interest. I have an idea that might be interesting and fun for George and myself, and for everyone who participates, to carry out when there is a large enough N (number of subjects/therapists and patients) in George's sample or it could begin right away for that matter.

As most of you know I have been working with the Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire (IGQ-67) for over a decade (we're heading into 20, and there are now numerous studies using it, internationally. (You can google or google scholar it to get a sense of how much it is being used), and also, go to my lab's web site at http://www.eparg.org (click below) Read On

On March 13 I will be giving an all day seminar on Pathogenic beliefs (origins, theory, their affect on self defeating behaviors, how patients work to face and overcome them.) Case examples from the audience will be welcomed.

I have invited John Gibbons to participate with me. The seminar is being sponsored by the Community Institute for Psychotherapy of San Rafael and will take place at the Town Center in Corte Madera. Call 459-5999 to reserve a place as these meetings are usually "sold out"

Along with a general practice in Mill Valley, CA (10 miles north of SF), I specialize in cult recovery and education, applying Control Mastery Theory and Family Systems Theory to my work with former members and families or loved ones of someone currently involved. In addition to individual in-office and phone sessions, I facilitate an on-going Group for Former Members that is currently in its eighth year. Disconfirmation of pathogenic beliefs internalized through the process of thought reform is central to recovery, according to my experience and observations as a clinician and former member of an Eastern / New Age cult in the 1970s.

Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China. (Lifton, 1961) enumerates eight psychological themes or methods used to change peoples basic beliefs without their being aware of the process. Briefly, these include the following: 1) milieu control, isolation, and powerful group pressure; 2)mystical manipulation, suggestions and expectations of experience that conform to the ideology; 3) a cult of confession in which members reveal all to unscrupulous leaders who use the information to control; 4) a sacred science that combines scientific terminology with myth and unsubstantiated claims about the leader and group; and 5)loading the language, words that are assigned special meaning to the group such as Co-worker with God meaning recruiter or surrender meaning the need to by-pass critical thinking.

Contact me through my website (click below) or at

38 Miller Avenue, #139, Mill Valley, CA 949401 415.383.7721; http://therapist.psychologytoday.com/35727 Email: crussellmft@earthlink.net

Hello colleagues friends and clients!

I am very excited to introduce two new groups to Equine Insight!

Beginning March 1, I am offering a children's group for ages 8-12 who have been diagnosed with ADHD and/or its related symptoms. Numerous studies have shown EFP to be a viable treatment for ADHD. The group will run for six weeks and is goal specific. I offer this at an affordable price and accept most insurance.

Another group is specific to therapists and health care workers. This 6-week pilot group begins Wednesday, March 3. Through experiential work with the horses, you will gain knowledge of how EFP operates while gaining valuable insight into your own cases and personal issues. I also offer this at an affordable introductory price.

Please contact me at 415-457-3800 or EquineInsight@aol.com if you are interested! Referrals welcome. Both Groups are held in Novato.

SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE FOR RENT - Full-time office in a well-maintained building for psychotherapists on Sacramento St. Office is unfurnished and freshly painted. Rent is $800 per month, which includes shared waiting room, with call system, and use of a kitchen, all utilities and weekly janitorial service. No extra charges or assessments. Contact Marcia Herman at (415) 563-5086.

North Berkeley/Solano Office Sublet

Large beautiful therapy office is available in ideal location. Colleagial, charming, with a fireplace and skylight. Sound proof, call system. Clean/utils inc. Available MWFS all day. Rent 2,3 or 4 days. Call (510) 526-0908

Full time Office in North Berkeley on Solano Ave. A beautiful full-time office is available in an all therapist building in an ideal location. It is soundproof, with a call system, skylight, air conditioning. Collegial atmosphere, the office has good dimensions & wonderful privacy. Utils/cleaning are included. Please call Frieda at 1-510-526-0908 or email tullyfog@aol.com

We have Movie Night on Wednesday night where Ingmar Bergmans Wild Strawberries will be shown. The International Conference on Control Mastery Theory is one of the most exciting, dynamic traditions of SFPRG and draws attendees from all over the world. We are looking forward to another large contingent of colleagues and students from Norway this year and we hope to have many others from Europe and the United States.

On the Saturday before the conference, on February 27, we will offer an introductory course on Control Mastery Theory from 9 to 4:30 at the San Francisco JCC. This seminar, given by Steve Kanofsky, Jan Schreiber, and myself, will present an overview of the theory with many clinical examples. We also will have attendees present cases from their practice by acting as one of their patients in a clinical vignette, while Jan Schreiber plays the role of therapist, modeling how an experienced Control Mastery therapist might act in a clinical setting. This will be followed by discussion of that case and an opportunity for more participants to present clinical cases in small groups.

We have finished the first five weeks of our new course, New Directions in Control Mastery Theory. After an initial overview of the theory, we have heard from John Curtis presenting old and new research as well as Lynn OConnor presenting her large body of work. Irwin Gootnick has conducted a case conference in the second hour of each class, resulting in exciting breakthroughs in the presented patients progress, just as a result of hearing and discussing the case in this stimulating and supportive setting. We will finish the presentation of Control Mastery Research in the next two weeks.

Denny Zeitlin presented his course on the Challenge of Intimacy, a Control Mastery approach to couples therapy. Thank you for another critically acclaimed presentation.

Unfortunately, in the effort to launch our New Directions course for the first time, and because of the newness of many members of the Education Committee, the announcement for the Spring Semester for SFPRG classes and conferences came out late. We apologize for the inconvenience to teachers and students who did not have adequate notice to plan to attend the regular case conferences being offered in the East Bay and in San Francisco. We value our teaching program, our students, and the tremendous efforts our teachers make. We hope this does not happen again.

We are doing two things to try to address this. First, we are going to develop a master list of all events, courses, meetings, and deadlines, not just for the education committee but for all the committees at SFPRG. Rob Pettipas, our executive director, will have the responsibility and the power to communicate and enforce this schedule. He will inform committee chairs of their responsibilities and be the keeper of the deadlines. This gives a lot of responsibility to Rob but we will try to help each other.

Secondly, a new Board Member, Jack Maslow, is taking on the job to revamp our marketing and communication strategy on the Education Committee. We have been developing, scheduling, and marketing conferences and workshops for over 20 years on the Education Committee, but we seem to reinvent the wheel every time. Jacks job will be to collect addresses of schools and training programs, and to streamline our method to market our program to the community. With Jacks help, we should be able to avoid missing future deadlines for sending our program fliers. We are currently rethinking how much marketing we will continue to do by standard mail and how we can more effectively and economically communicate by email or through our website. We hope to see you at the 23rd International Conference, either teaching, attending, volunteering, or partying with attendees at the Wine & Cheese Party. And for those new to the Theory, dont miss the Introductory Seminar February 27, 2010. See you next month.

Steve Foreman

Current Courses:

I would like to call your attention to three of our upcoming educational offerings. Please refer to our website (www.sfprg.org) click below for more details.

How and Why Psychotherapy Works: An Introduction to Control Mastery Theory Saturday, February 27, 9:00 a.m.  4:30 p.m. Steven Foreman, M.D., Steven Kanofsky, Ph.D. and Jan Schreiber, Ph.D. This is an excellent opportunity to learn the clinical underpinnings of the theory and practice of Control Mastery. The seminar is held at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center on California and Presidio Streets.

23rd Annual International Conference on Control Mastery Theory Monday, March 1- Friday, March 5, 10:00 a.m.  5:15 p.m. This yearly comprehensive conference was sold out last year and still has openings this year. Held at SFPRGs site in the Presidio, 9 and 10 Funston Avenue. We will be offering 16 different courses throughout the week, participants unable to attend the entire conference can attend individual classes on a space available basis. While space is limited, as of this printing we have some open seats.

Breaking the Spell: Understanding Why Kids Do the Very Thing that Drives Their Parents Crazy Saturday, April 3, 9:00 a.m.  4:15 p.m. Steven Foreman, M.D. will present ideas from his recent book of the same title about how to formulate a child and family case to better understand and more effectively intervene with the sometimes trying and difficult behavior of children.

From my theoretical perspective, pathogenic beliefs are most often related to empathy-based guilt that is misdirected or exaggerated and is often not quite conscious, which is exactly what the IGQ measures. In fact, I developed the IGQ with Jack Berry, Joe Weiss, Marshall Bush and Hal Sampson, because, when I had read through many of the case formulations from John Curtis and George Silberschatz's brief psychotherapy research project, and had concluded that the formulation in almost every case came down to inhibitions resulting from empathy-based guilt that was misdirected or exaggerated. Each case formulation focused primarily on survivor or separation guilt, connected to a greatly exaggerated sense of responsibility for the well being of others. The pathogenic beliefs in the cases all involved a maladaptive or excessive and unrealistic guilt towards others (a parent, a sibling etc). I began to realize that our case formulations aren't case-specific but how we were in the treatment, was highly case specific.

Now, as I was dabbling in psychotherapy research, which I was doing because Joe Weiss wanted me to, and I was learning something about people, I was really focused on the paradigm change that Control Mastery theory represented. Instead of being primarily selfish, self-centered, bad, (the Freudian perspective on the unconscious mind), people (clients) were seen instead, as primarily altruistic, and overly worried about loved ones. I wanted to look at something from larger samples, I wanted to study this tendency to erroneously believe that people are responsible for other's problems, and the emotional state we called survivor guilt --that is the belief that if you are happy at work, or in your marriage, you risk making your mother (or father, or sister) feel badly, simply by comparison. I wanted to take a serious (and empirical) look at the way we tend to believe we are responsible for others' happiness, or well-being.

I also wanted to get us (control mastery theory) more into the mainstream of psychology, (and not just located in the psychoanalytic literature, or even any clinical literature) I wanted to use a broad concept upon which our theory lies, and I felt that empathy-based guilt was the key (we called it interpersonal guilt to make clear it involved two or more people, or it was related to how a person felt guilty in relationships, rather than just internally). It seemed from reading those transcripts and case formulations that survivor or omnipotent guilt were central, with implications for normal as well as abnormal people. I will skip on the long story (if anyone wants to know it, I'll be happy to tell it) of how we developed our instrument, the Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire (IGQ), which is essentially statements of what we call pathogenic beliefs, and provides reliably and validly a measure of how guilt proneness (guilt toward others) a person tends to be.

As I read about George Silbertchatz' new measure of pathogenic beliefs, to be filled out by therapists, I got this idea:

I think it would be so interesting, when the N in George's sample is large enough, if we could have the patients for whom the therapists have established ratings on the Pathogenic Beliefs scales, take the IGQ. That is we could have each patient rated on survivor etc guilt, in addition to the patient's therapist's ratings on pathogenic beliefs. We could then examine how they relate to one another --pathogenic beliefs and empathy-based guilt subscales. We were, indirectly (or without naming it, while designing it for a large population, normal and abnormal, in the IGQ,) examining pathogenic beliefs related to guilt, I think we should collaborate, and have the patients fill out the IGQ, while the therapists fill out a pathogenic belief scale for each patient.

The IGQ subscales related directly to empathic guilt are "Survivor", Omnipotent Responsibility " and "Separation Guilt. A 4th subscale, "Self-hate" is more about surface/conscious irrational beliefs (as contrasted with pathogenic beliefs), is highly correlated with Hollon's measure of "Irrational Beliefs" and with all measures of depression, and therefore we no longer use it in many of our current studies; it's not really a measure of empathic guilt. I figure that people high in --for example-- survivor guilt on the IGQ will also be high on "self-hate" because the more on-the-surface kinds of irrational beliefs are the result of the deeper underlying pathogenic beliefs, related to fears of hurting others. Also, in a factor analysis we ran at some point, we ended up with two distinct factors, the first including "Survivor Guilt, Omnipotent Guilt and Separation Guilt, and the second including the Self-hate" subscale. Interestingly, over many years and numerous projects, we found that "Separation Guilt" was not often problematic --it seemed to correlate with age as might be expected, and it was in many studies associated with good family life and other positive experiences. I now tend to use only "Survivor Guilt" and "Omnipotent Guilt" in studies related to psychopathology, as the most interesting information lies in those subscales. You might want to look at a study I'm doing right now with Jack Berry and Tom Lewis, developing a scale we call "The Neurotransmitter Attributes Questionnaire (NAQ)" --we have excellent results and the position of guilt is very interesting (in this measure we have a "low dopamine" and "low serotonin" subscale, and the other measures include standard measures of different kinds of psychopathology, two of our empathic guilty subscales, and a standard short and very reliable personality questionnaire by Oliver John et al. The study is up online and you can take a look at it (get there through the lab's web site), and how we use the two subscales. Too get to any of our onlne studies, go to http://www.eparg.org

We have over 1000 subjects in a study we call emotions and personality and we are still collecting data.

So what does everyone think? Would we stir up more interest in participating in the study of the new pathogenic beliefs scale? Click in with your thoughts.