An Interview with Alan Rappoport, Ph.D. on Control-Mastery Theory

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Alan Rappoport, Ph.D. on Control-Mastery Theory". In this edition of the Wise Counsel Podcast, Dr. Van Nuys interviews Alan Rappoport, Ph.D. on the topic of Control-Mastery Theory, first formulated by Psychiatrist Joseph Weiss, MD and Psychologist Harold Sampson, Ph.D. in the 1960s and subsequently developed by Dr. Rappoport and other members of the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group. The term 'Control' refers to the idea that patients come to therapy in a defensive mode which they have chosen to enact in an unconscious fashion because these defenses have helped them to feel safe in past relationships. The term 'Mastery' refers to the idea that people are innately motivated to heal themselves (e.g., to mastery past issues by learning to function without their defenses constraining their natural inclinations), although they may not know exactly how to accomplish that task. Control Mastery psychotherapy thus attempts to offer patients a safe and accepting therapy space in which they can relax their defenses or controls and work out or master their issues. This is a relationship oriented therapy which proceeds as patients 'test' their therapists through the process of transference. It is less a psychodyanmic psychotherapy, however, and more of a humanistic one, or perhaps, its own thing.