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.