Staying With the Feeling: An Anger Event in Psychodynamic-Interpersonal Therapy

This article describes the intensive analysis of an event in psychodynamic-interpersonal therapy. The client found the event helpful because she was able to express anger; this appeared to be achieved through the technique of "staying with feelings." Observer ratings of emotion indicated that the client's experience of anger changed over the course of the event, from an atypical expression of anger to one described as normal by the pleasure-arousal theory of emotion. Experiential and interpersonal rationales for staying with feelings were compared with data describing change processes, and a possible mechanism of change was identified.