An Object-Relations Perspective on Depression

Jon Frederickson

Clients suffering from depression are often plagued with self-hatred, their self-talk a barrage of brutal attacks. Helping them heal depends on a therapist’s ability to promote positive self-regard and self-compassion by creating a bond of respect and trust. This workshop will focus on showing clients how self-attacks lead to a destructive kind of therapeutic relationship and how to move to a truly healing connection. You’ll explore ways to:

• Identify different forms of self-attack and how to interrupt self-criticism, self-dismissal, and self-neglect in session
• Help clients understand how the ways they hurt themselves are parallel to how they’ve been hurt by others in the past
• Guide clients to process grief, guilt, and shame over the ways they’ve hurt themselves and see how they’ve created the symptoms and suffering from which they want relief

Jon Frederickson, MSW, is faculty Washington School of Psychiatry and author of Co-Creating Change and The Lies We Tell Ourselves: How to Face the Truth, Embrace Yourself, and Create a Better Life.