BUNDLE : Nancy McWilliams (2) - Enactment, Rupture and Repair: Schizoid Dynamics; Case Presentation (3 month access)

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BUNDLE: Dr Michael Garrett - Psychotherapy Roadshow Lectures (3 month access)

In this series of 5 lectures recorded in Australia in 2025, Dr Michael Garrett brings his warmth, wisdom and humour to the understanding and treatment of psychosis using CBT and psychodynamic approaches. The series includes case presentations, videos and extensive theoretical foundations.

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BUNDLE: Nancy McWilliams (1) - Psychoanalytic Diagnosis, Supervision, Personality, Vital Signs (3 month access)

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Case Presentation: The Woman Who Hurt Too Much to Talk (3 month access)

In this 1 hour lecture, Dr McWilliams presents the case of "Sarah", a patient who died of a sudden illness during therapy. "The more I got to know Sarah, the more I admired her courage and appreciated the internal suffering that she had kept entirely private for all of her 55 years. It was painful to lose her before I could know her better. Most centrally, however, I believe that the story of her therapy illustrates a theme about which I have been speaking and writing for many years — namely, that what is most valuable about psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic approach to treatment is not a particular technique or process but a set of values and a body of knowledge that can inform and give shape to any kind of therapeutic effort... The solution that she and I crafted for her complex dilemma expressed the idiosyncratic interplay of our respective personalities and is a good example of a treatment that I consider quintessentially psychoanalytic despite being highly unconventional."

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Clinically Useful Diagnosis: Understanding personality and psychopathology beyond DSM and ICD (3 Month Access)

Since 1980, diagnostic taxonomies like the DSM and the ICD have reflected the interests of insurance companies, pharmaceutical corporations, governmental cost-cutters, and some academics, rather than the needs of patients and clinicians, and reducing psychological suffering in the most humane and effective ways. In this 1hr 22min video, eminent Clinical Psychologist Dr. McWilliams puts the DSM and ICD classifications in historical context, mentioning several alternative diagnostic approaches, and emphasizing with examples, the clinical value of a dimensional, inferential, contextual understanding of personality and psychopathology.

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• By Jillian Harrington

Enactment, Rupture, and Repair in the Clinical Process (3 month access)

In this one hour lecture, eminent Clinical Psychologist Dr. Nancy McWilliams reviews evidence for the critical importance of the therapeutic alliance to therapy outcome. Enactments are now widely assumed to be inevitable in psychotherapy, and sometimes lead to ruptures of the alliance that need to be repaired. She outlines general principles of therapy process relevant to the rupture-repair cycle in psychotherapy, with examples from her clinical experience of enactments and efforts at repair of the therapeutic alliance.

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Enhancing Therapeutic Competence through Clinical Supervision and Consultation with Dr Nancy McWilliams (3 month access)

In this 1hr 50Min lecture, Dr McWilliams addresses the practical and professional needs of both supervisors and supervisees. Many approaches to clinical supervision conceptualize supervisory competence in terms of mastering techniques or skill sets. Dr. McWilliams argues that good supervision and consultation are not so much about teaching skills, although that is part of such mentoring, as they are about relational and developmental goals, such as creating safety in the supervisory alliance, fostering professional and personal growth, facilitating supervisee integration of their clinical interventions with their individual personalities, appreciating the implications of personality differences for technique, and attending to progress that goes beyond symptom amelioration.

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Individualities: Ten Angles of Vision on Personality with Clinical Implications (3 Month Access)

A vast empirical literature has established the importance of the therapist’s and client’s personality to treatment outcome. In this 1hr 50min lecture, Dr. McWilliams reviews ten different psychological lenses through which personality has been viewed (temperament, attachment, observed clinical pattern, defensive structure, affective organization, implicit cognition, drive tendencies, self-definition versus self-in-relation orientation, core relational theme, level of severity). She reviews the evidence base for each angle of vision, explores some therapeutic implications of each perspective, and gives clinical examples.

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Listening with Intent to Psychotic Clients with Dr Michael Garrett (3 month access)

Listening to Psychotic Clients with the Intent to Understand the Meaning of Psychotic Symptoms: Even when a clinician is not focused on providing ambitious psychotherapy to a client, as might be the case for a prescribing psychiatrist, listening with an intent to understand the psychological meaning of psychotic symptoms can enhance the therapeutic alliance. Dr. Garrett will describe a range of clinical issues that arise when clinicians attempt to engage psychotic patients in treatment.

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Monitoring Vital Signs of Psychological Growth: Therapeutic change beyond symptom reduction (3 month access)

In this 1.5 hour lecture, eminent Clinical Psychologist Dr Nancy McWilliams covers ten areas that have been identified in the clinical literature as critical aspects of overall mental health, with examples of how therapists and patients can pursue these goals together. The goal of treatment is not only symptom reduction but also facilitation of patients’ resolution of general problems in living, pursuit of overall life goals, and maturation in the areas of love, work, and play. Clinicians need to keep in mind a general sense of psychological wellness by which they can assess how treatment is going, for their patients and themselves.

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Pathological Narcissism and Psychopathy - including treatment considerations (3 month access)

Pathological narcissism has lately been getting a lot of attention – and considerable oversimplification. This 2hr 45 minutes lecture is intended to help therapists deepen their understanding of people whose narcissistic qualities are problematic. Using examples, Dr. McWilliams covers the range from normal to highly pathological versions of narcissism (e.g., Kernberg’s “malignant narcissist” and Shaw’s “traumatic narcissist”). The lecture also covers approaches to the treatment of narcissistic individuals, highlighting specific interpersonal processes such as helping the narcissistic person to express normal dependency, remorse, and gratitude. She also suggests some ways to help “victims” of pathological narcissism who are repeatedly devalued and criticized. Case vignettes help to illustrate these topics.

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• By Psych Ascend

Psychosis, Trauma, and the Bayesian Model of the Brain and the Mind, with Dr Michael Garrett (3 month access)

In this 1.5 hour lecture, Dr. Garrett describes how the phenomenology of psychosis can be understood as a consequence of the modern neuroscientific description of the brain as a prediction machine, combined with Friston’s conception of living organisms conceived of as self-organizing systems. Dr. Garrett provides clinical examples to illustrate these theories and their implications for psychotherapy for psychosis.

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Psychotherapy for Psychosis: Integrating CBT and Psychodynamic Treatment for Psychosis (3 month access)

Psychotherapy for Psychosis: Integrating Cognitive-Behavioral and Psychodynamic Treatment Dr. Garrett will describe the utility of integrating cognitive-behavior therapy for psychosis (CBTp) and psychodynamic treatment in helping patients with psychotic conditions. CBTp can help patients consider the possibility that their delusional beliefs are literally false, while a psychodynamic approach can help them understand the figurative, metaphorical truth of their symptoms as authentic expressions of their state of mind and past history. Dr. Garrett will give a detailed presentation of the first 16 sessions in the successful therapy of a chronically psychotic woman, unresponsive to medication, who for 20 years believed she had a horrible smell. Dr. Garrett will include a video of the patient reflecting on her treatment.

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Psychotic Symptoms as Disguised Recollections of Trauma with Dr Michael Garrett (3 month access)

In this 1.5 hour lecture, Dr. Garrett summarizes research that bears on the question, “What mediates between trauma and psychosis?” Dr. Garrett compares and contrasts the phenotypic manifestations of PTSD and psychosis, respectively, presenting evidence for the view that psychotic symptoms constitute disguised recollections of trauma. Dr. Garrett illustrates this idea in a detailed description of the successful psychotherapy of a chronically psychotic man, unresponsive to medication, who feared that he might be arrested, with a video clip of the patient reflecting on his treatment.

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• By Psych Ascend

Resistances to the Use of Logic in CBT for Psychosis, with Dr Michael Garrett (3 month access)

In this 1.5 hour lecture, Dr. Garrett describes ten forms of resistance by clients to the use of logic in CBT for psychosis (CBTp) that may interfere with the optimal efficacy of CBTp. Dr. Garrett suggests interventions that clinicians may use to distinguish such obstacles to clinical progress.

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Schizoid Dynamics: An Introverted Psychology that DSM and ICD Diagnosis Misunderstand (3 month access)

In this 1hr 23 min lecture, eminent Clinical Psychologist Dr Nancy McWilliams explores the personality organization, affective experience, defenses, conflicts, and organizing cognitions of individuals with schizoid dynamics, with emphasis on the continuum of severity in individuals of this personality type: from high-functioning and creative to psychotically troubled and despairing. An inferential, contextual, and dimensional understanding of schizoid psychology is elaborated, with discussion of the clinical implications of this way of understanding schizoid subjectivity.

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• By Psych Ascend