Abstract
The psychotherapist endeavors to alter, if not abolish, pathologic adaptive and defensive mechanisms of the personality. The expressive-exploratory approach relies on improvement through resolution of buried conflicts; assistance is given through interpretations of irrational emotional reactions. In contract, the aim of suppressive-supportive psychotherapy, in which interpretation is minimized, is repression through a substitution of new defensive and adaptive technics. Flexibility is essential in psychotherapy in order to apply the most appropriate technics in a given situation. A unique feature of all psychotherapeutic efforts is the use of self.