Programmed Writing and Therapy with Symbiotically Enmeshed Patients

This paper illustrates how programmed writing lessons to be completed as homework assignments can be used in conjunction with traditional verbal psychotherapy. Each patient was involved in a symbolically enmeshed relationship. Special benefits for patients from the combination of programmed writing lessong with traditional psychotherapy were: (1) increased couple communication; (2) possibly more rapid change; (3) possibly shorter-term therapy; (4) increased forgotten trauma discovery; (5) and increased explicit and specific instructions. Patients were informed from the outset that the use of programmed writing lessons would or might: (1) help the therapist get a better idea of what was going on in regard to the development, values, rules, etc. of their symbiotic relationships; (2) decrease the time spent in therapy, and (3) encourage self-realization through self-directed assignments between sessions. For psychotherapists there are advantages of: (1) putting the responsibility for change on the shoulders of patients rather than on themselves; (2) using programs of theoretical and therapeutic approaches that may not be well known to the therapist; (3) reducing the frequency of sessions and administering written homework assignments when the therapist is on vacation; and (4) increasing the number of patients that can be seen for unit of therapist's time.