Summary Psychotherapy For The Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse

Judgment Aware of appropriateness and likely consequences of intended behavior Sense of reality of the world and of the self Experiences external events as real; differentiates self from others Affect and impulse control Maintains self-control; can tolerate intense affect and delay of gratification Interpersonal functioning Sustains relationships over time despite separations or hostility Thought processes Attention, concentration, memory, language, and other cognitive processes are intact; thinking is realistic and logical Adaptive regression in the service of the ego Relaxation of ego controls, allowing creative perceptual or conceptual integrations to increase adaptive potential Defensive functioning Defenses satisfactorily prevent anxiety, depression, and other unpleasant affects Stimulus barrier Aware of sensory stimuli without stimulus overload Autonomous functioning Cognitive and motor functions (i.e., primary autonomy) and routine behavior (i.e., secondary autonomy) are free from disturbance Synthetic-integrative functioning Integrates contradictory attitudes, values, affects, behavior, and self-representations Mastery competence Performance consistent with existing capacity Object constancy Ability to provide for oneself, caretaking and soothing in the absence of the caretaker Adapted from Bellak, L. (1989). The broad role of ego function assessment. In S. Wetzler & M. Katz (Eds.), Contemporary approaches to psychological assessment (pp