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In this chapter, we briefly revisit our central thesis that an informed understanding of development is foundational for psychodynamic work. In fact, we believe that knowledge of development can serve the clinician in every interaction. Patients who consult with mental health professionals have myriad agendas and disorders; there certainly are diagnostic groups that neither seek nor benefit from the psychodynamic exploration of “meanings, unconscious ideas, and hidden motives” (Wolff 1996, p. 369). However, even in work with patients who request and are best served by purely behavioral interventions, therapists’ grounding in the solid understanding of development enhances their expertise and navigation through the inevitable transference/countertransference dynamics and resistance to change that arise in every form of therapy. Appreciation of the impact of prior history, the universal tendency to repeat and re-create versions of past relationships, the presence of pockets of naïve cognition based on childhood mentation, and the role of specific defenses in managing past trauma are all crucial to deeper understanding of the person in the consulting room, whatever therapeutic modality is deemed suitable.
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