ABSTRACT

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According to Ciorbea and Nedelcea, (2012) studies in psychotherapy have increasingly maintained the notion that psychotherapy overestimates theoretical models, whilst minimizing the influence of the therapist variables on the therapeutic process (Ciorbea and Nedelcea, 2012). Moreover, meta-analytical research has illustrated no significant differences in the inefficiency of the different psychotherapy models (Wampold, 2001, Drisko 2004; Sprenkle and Blow, 2004). Since 1960, the focus has been shifted to accurate, and controlled standards to evaluate psychotherapeutic techniques (Ciorbea and Nedelcea, 2012).
My basic assertion in this article is that when relating to psychotherapeutic encounters there is a distinction between the patient’s content and behaviour, and the therapist's representation and understanding of it. Regardless of the therapist’s theoretical approach, he often encounters inconsistencies, in ways he perceives the patient and/or his situation and experience.
Whenever the patient's expressions do not meet the therapist's expectations, the therapist experiences an anomaly. Taking into account that the therapist’s unconscious is always present in the encounter, the fact the therapist is projecting is inevitable. However, in order to disentangle the relation between the therapist's projections and the patient’s experience, the therapist is obligated to correct and amend his understanding.
The characteristics of the transition from one therapeutic understanding to another, through detection of the appearance of anomalies, is mediated by the cycle.


This cycle which involves internal processes in the therapist's mind and external activity in the actual dimension bares theoretical resemblance to the cycles of predictive processing described by
Clark (2016) which involves “core perception - attention - action”, in which internal models of the world and their associated predictions play key roles in directing actions” (Clark, 2016).
My practical experience supports the application of the suggested technique, in psychotherapeutic processes. By applying this cyclic technique, we can bridge the gap between the patient’s experience and the therapist's understanding of it.