RESEARCH PRACTICE

During this year 2010 two new masters of psychology became part of the Psychotherapy and Change Research Program team. They are Ana Cristina Amézaga Avitia, from México and Yolanda Dávila Pontoon, from Ecuador .

They are doing their research practice as part of the Doctoral Program, of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Universidad de Chile and Heidelberg Universität.

	Nombre	Curriculum Vitae
	Ana Cristina Amézaga Avitia
	Yolanda Dávila Ponton

Focus in psychotherapy

Contemporary therapists have been called to deliver treatments with higher levels of effectiveness andbriefness. To fullfill this demand, brief psychodynamic psychotherapy practice has emphasize theimportance of establishing a psychodynamic specific focus for the treatment, versus more comprehensive objectives framed for long treatments (Scaturo, 2002). Focalization is considered as an operation that involves reducing, theoretically and technically, problems raised by the patient to make them accessible to treatment. This will allow shortening treatment, since it provides to therapist a guide for their interventions, allowing him and patient, to link experiences that apparently were not related. This way patient accomplishes more insight and mastery on a central topic in a brief time period (Jiménez, 2005)

Although the focus usefulness is widely accepted, conceptualizations or approximations to their definition are diverse (Fiorini, 2000) all of them agree on the importance of working on it during therapeutic process, as an important element for the patient change.

Although there are many atemps to operationalize focus, (CCRT "Core Conflictual Relationship Theme", Luborsky & Crits-Christoph, 1990; Maladaptative Cyclic Model, Schatch, Binder & Strupp, 1984) the present project ascribe to the Operationalyzed Psychodynamic Diagnosis (OPD, OPD Task-Force, 2001), that allows an initial dynamic formulation and make easier focalization, focusing on different aspects of personality, resulting in an inclusive way to operationalize.

From empirical studies, and as a result of studies that didn't have this dilemma, psychotherapeutic processes seems to have an irregular trajectory, with advances and backward movements. This has been demonstrated especially in studies that use the assimilation model of Stiles (Stiles, et al, 1990), such as the Gabalda's studies (2006a, 2006b). This studies support the clinical experience, where is hard to think that there is only one focus for all the treatment and that the way patient deals or assimilates it, is not in a lineal way, but also irregular.

Due the importance of the focus in the therapeutic process for the patient changes, it's interesting what, how and when the focus is changing. Therefore, the investigation objective is to study therapeutic focus in brief psychodynamic processes, with the purposes of determining it's characteristics (the different foci), it's trajectories through the process and the evolution of the way the patient assimilates this problematic areas, establishing the relation of this with change indicators and therapeutic outcome.

Paula Dagnino R.