The Process of Psychotherapy (RANZCP Psychotherapy Case) – Dr Neil Jeyasingam
Dr. Neil Jeyasingam is a former research scholar of the Institute of Psychiatry (Sydney) and Institute of Psychiatry (UK) and specializes in phenomenology and personality disorders in the elderly. In public practice, he is the in–patient clinical lead for an old–age psychiatry service, as well as ECT Clinical Director. He is also the Binational New South Wales Representative for the Faculty of Old Age Psychiatry, a Foundation Accredited Member of the Royal Australian and New Zealand Psychotherapy Faculty, a Clinical Lecturer with Sydney University, and Senior Lecturer with Western Sydney University.
He is also the founder of Profectus Psychiatry.
Author Quotes
Reformulation is not just something you do at one point – it is an ongoing process throughout the therapy, but you plan at set points during the sessions to critically review all the information…so I suggest you do this about a third of the way through the therapy.
What’s fascinating is that over the course of the therapy you learn a lot about yourself; you learn a lot about how you respond to difficult situations and it’s amazing when you see them [patients] change.
Summary
Dr. Jeyasingam begins this video excerpt by summarising the psychotherapy process and looks at patient selection, assessment, and discusses the initial sessions held with the patient.
He discusses the importance of documentation and talks about Process Notes vs Progress Notes, highlighting the requirements for each, and discusses specific experiences with the audience.
Dr. Jeyasingam describes a strategy for how to write up Process and Progress Notes and speaks with the audience about the pros and cons of recording vs note-taking during treatment sessions.
He continues with advice on how to re-evaluate the entire progress of the patient – not only the session which produced the most useful insight. 
This session concludes with an overview of the therapy as a whole and tips on how to approach the writing up of your case.
Take-home Points
- The most relevant material from a psychotherapy session is often right at the end.
- Audio and video recordings are permitted during a treatment session with the agreement of the patient but can be detrimental to how the patient responds to the therapist.
- Process Notes are organized into four key areas: assessment, initial course, course following reformulation, and termination.
Quiz
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