Lezione Magistrale: Guillem Feixas

Introduzione ai dilemmi in psicologia

Catedrático, Facultat de Psicologia, Universitat de Barcelona (UB)Lezione riservata agli studenti SFU in occasione dell’inizio dell’anno accademico 2016-’17 Venerdì 7 ottobre 2016 ore 9:00 Centro Congressi FAST Piazzale Rodolfo Morandi 2, Milano   The idea that human beings have internal conflicts or dilemmas is evident both in our personal experience, the patients’ manifestation of their suffering, and in the psychological literature. Prominent theories as those of Freud, Piaget and Heider pointed to the fact that we might hold internal contradictory tendencies (conflict, ambivalence, dilemmas). However, little research or theoretical advances have been made on this topic since. Instead, research on cognitive variables affecting clinical conditions such as depression, anxiety or eating disorders have focused on cognitive distortions, misattributions, memory and attention processes, among others. Within the context of Personal Construct Theory (a predecessor of many present cognitive theories) the notion of cognitive conflict has evolved into a research line. Our group has found a way to identify two types of conflicts (implicative dilemmas and dilemmatic constructs) from data collected using the Repertory Grid technique. Results suggest that those conflicts are more common in clinical samples than in control groups. Data from different studies will be presented. These studies support the idea that cognitive conflicts might play a role in various clinical conditions, and especially in blocking the process of change or improvement. Also, a therapy manual has been created (and teste for depression in a controlled study) to focus on the resolution of these conflicts which might be of interest as component of treatment packages.Dr. Feixas is teaching various subjects in Clinical Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology of the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) both graduate and undergraduate. He is Director, teacher and trainer of the three-year master program on “Cognitive-Social Therapy” (constructivist and systemic emphasis), the one-year master programs on “Couples and Sex Therapy”, “Psychological Interventions for Eating Disorders and Obesity”, and of the postgraduate course on “Clinical Hypnosis”. He has supervised several doctoral dissertations (eleven completed and eight in progress). Dr. Feixas founded in 1999 the Multicentre Dilemma Project, a research collaborative enterprise. He was Principal Investigator of the project “Cognitive conflicts in unipolar depression” (2009-2011, grant ref. PSI2008- 00406) and “Cognitive therapy for unipolar depression: efficacy of a dilemma-focused intervention” (2012-2014, ref. PSI2011-23246) both funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Also as Principal Investigator he directed the project “Systemic couple therapy for depression” (2008-2011) funded by the Spanish Federation of Family Therapy Associations (FEATF) and now the ongoing project “Psychological Treatment of Depression in Women with Fibromyalgia: Differential Efficacy and Factors Predictive of Outcome” (2015-2018, ref. PSI2014-57957-R) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. He is also the coordinator of the research group “Intervention in Clinical and Health Psychology” at the UB, recognized by the Catalan government (Generalitat de Catalunya, SGR717). He is member of the Institute of Neurosciences (UB), former member of the Advisory Board of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration, and accredited supervisor of the FEATF.   INFO: Segreteria Sigmund Freud University (lun-ven, h 9.00-16.30) Ripa di Porta Ticinese 77, MILANO 0283241854  – segreteria@milano-sfu.it