Clinical Practices and Synthesis
Changing features such as sense of weakness and unworthiness may be
challenging in any patients, and sure it is in persons with dependent
personality disorder. Their ideas of being unworthy, unlovable and
fragile are more than mere thoughts, they go along with negative bodily
sensations which are hard to change. When patients are prey of negative
somatic states, their feelings and thoughts are easily stirred towards
the negative as well and are hard to change. Using a combination of
fine-grained formulation and practices focused on relieving past
memories and changing their plot, as well as working with body based
techniques can be effective in changing resistant maladaptive patterns.
Body work serves also as the main gateway to the patients internal
world, that is, it helps them accessing previously unacknowledged
beliefs and emotions that lies at the roots of suffering. In spite of
the single case nature of our paper, and of absence of formal measures
of therapeutic change, we contend that including body work, as well with
other experiential practices, e.g. guided imagery and rescripting and
mindfulness, (Heyen, 2022; Hayen & Dimaggio, 2024) can be part of the
toolbox of clinicians treating dependent PD and PD in general.