{"id":2192,"date":"2025-02-16T23:02:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T22:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.podolan.sk\/?page_id=2192"},"modified":"2026-01-23T13:57:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T12:57:57","slug":"moj-vyskum-v-psychoterapii","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.podolan.sk\/en\/moj-vyskum-v-psychoterapii\/","title":{"rendered":"My research in psychotherapy"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

My research in psychotherapy<\/h1>\n

In psychotherapy, safety is often taken for granted. It is commonly described as something that should be present from the very beginning and should not be disrupted. Yet clinical practice repeatedly reveals a striking paradox: some clients feel safe in therapy\u2014and nevertheless, nothing essential changes.<\/p>\n

It is precisely these situations that raise questions only marginally addressed in textbooks:
\nWhat does safety in psychotherapy actually mean?
\nWhen does it promote change, and when might it inadvertently maintain stagnation?
\nAnd what happens in the therapeutic process when safety itself begins to shift?<\/p>\n

These questions have shaped my long-term research interest in safety in psychotherapy\u2014not as an idealized or self-evident background of the therapeutic relationship, but as a process that continuously changes within therapy and has a decisive impact on the possibility of psychological change.<\/p>\n

Research Findings on Safety and Change<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In research studies conducted at Sigmund Freud University Vienna in collaboration with Prof. Omar Gelo, safety in psychotherapy was examined as a process variable<\/em> rather than as an assumed prerequisite of therapy. Analyses of therapeutic processes demonstrated that safety fulfills multiple functions and plays an active role in change processes across different therapeutic orientations.<\/p>\n

These findings challenged historical\u2014and often overly simplified\u2014conceptions of safety as something that should be continuously maximized in therapy. Instead, the research showed that safety supports change when it is sensitively regulated<\/em> in accordance with the client\u2019s capacity and the phase of the therapeutic process.<\/p>\n

These research findings led to a refined understanding of safety in clinical practice. Stable and calming safety can be essential for some people and at certain phases of therapy\u2014it helps regulate emotions, restore trust, and maintain therapeutic contact. At the same time, it does not hold true that more safety is always better. Detailed research has shown that safety needs to be continuously modulated in therapy: at times, empathic support takes precedence, while at other moments it is important to create space for confrontation and appropriate risk. For some clients, change begins only when therapy moves beyond being solely calming and opens space to try something new\u2014for example, openly expressing disagreement, naming difficult emotions, or taking steps they have previously avoided.<\/p>\n

Safety Regulation as a Mechanism of Change<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Building on these findings, my subsequent line of research focused on how safety is actually regulated in psychotherapy and how this regulation relates to psychological change.<\/p>\n

A long-term analysis of therapeutic processes led to the identification of seven modes of safety regulation. In each of them, the therapist helps the client\u2014in a mode-specific way\u2014feel safe enough to stay in contact and free enough to change. At times, the therapist serves as a secure base; at other times, they co-create a safe framework and conditions with the client, or attune relationally so the client feels understood and connected. When the client is ready, the therapist gently supports exploring something new at the edge of the client\u2019s safety zone and carefully titrates tolerable instability as well as disruptions of established patterns. If the process becomes strained under pressure, the therapist returns to repairing the relationship and restoring its rhythm. Ultimately, the aim is for the client to gradually internalize these new ways of regulation and functioning so they can draw on them outside therapy as well.<\/p>\n

These modes did not emerge as a normative model or a therapeutic manual, but as descriptions of processes observed in real clinical practice across therapeutic approaches. They delineate a process framework that illustrates how safety dynamically changes in therapy and how its regulation is linked to emotional reorganization, the expansion of affect tolerance, and changes in self-experience.<\/p>\n

A Transtheoretical and Clinical Framework<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The model of safety regulation is conceived as transtheoretical. It is not tied to a specific therapeutic school or set of techniques, but represents a framework that cuts across therapeutic orientations.<\/p>\n

It serves as an orienting map of the therapeutic process, enabling a more nuanced differentiation between moments in which safety supports stabilization and moments in which safety needs to be regulated in a different, more specific way for change to occur.<\/p>\n

Which type of safety can be used in clinical practice, to what extent, and in what manner always depends on the specific therapeutic relationship, the client\u2019s regulatory capacity, and the broader clinical context.<\/p>\n

Publications and Scholarly Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The research on safety in psychotherapy described above has been published in international peer-reviewed journals focusing on clinical psychology and psychotherapy.<\/p>\n

Selected publications:<\/strong><\/p>\n