Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic. LIII, 1989: Crisis Intervention through Early Interpretation of Unconscious Guilt. Nicholas H. Nichols. Pp. 115-122.

This model of crisis intervention is derived from Weiss and Sampson's theory that psychopathology is based primarily on unconscious guilt that originated in early traumatic experiences. The model assumes that (1) crisis confirms a person's grim unconscious beliefs and exacerbates unconscious guilt, (2) increasing unconscious

guilt leads to decreasing capacity to cope with crises, (3) patients' capacity to cope with crisis may be augmented by decreasing their unconscious guilt, and (4) a psychotherapist best effects this by fostering patients' insight into their unconscious pathogenic beliefs. The therapeutic work is accomplished in an open-ended interview during which one focuses on the origins and development of the patient's pathogenic beliefs and their relationship to current stressors. The therapist then exploits the transference manifestations of testing and turning passive into active by using special therapeutic techniques to expose, and to help the patient modify, unconscious guilt feelings. The patient tends to experience rapid initial symptom relief and to seek further insight. There are two illustrative case reports.