Being And Relating In Psychotherapy

Clients who seek therapy often feel they are struggling with their whole being: their emotional, physical, relational and social selves. Understanding this is crucial to developing a successful therapeutic relationship. Using psychodynamic, psychoanalytic and existential ideas, this book explores topics fundamental to human living, such as love, generosity, shame, mortality and spirituality. It considers how these states of being can affect clients' lives and the important role they play in the relationship between the therapist and the client. Combining theory with clinical experience and practice, it provides trainee and practising therapists with a thought-provoking perspective that broadens and enriches thinking, reflection and understanding of their work. Drawing on original thought from a range of theorists including Bion, Buber, Freud, Heidegger, Irigaray, Jung, Klein and Winnicott, this book is an important contribution for students and practitioners in the fields of counselling and psychotherapy.

In John Birtchnell's last book How Humans Relate, he proposed a new theory as the basis for a science of relating. Relating in Psychotherapy explains how the relevance of this theory relates to the practice of psychotherapy. The theory cuts across all schools of therapy, and is a way of describing each school in terms of relating in both the client and the therapist. The theory is constructed around two major axes; a horizontal one concerning the degree to which we need to become involved with or separated from others, and a vertical one concerning the degree to which we choose to exercise power over others or permit others to exercise their power over us. With numerous clinical examples, John Birtchnell explains how we need to be competet in all four relating positions (close, distant, upper and lower), and argues that people who seek therapy usually lack competence in one or more of them, but through the course of therapy, their relating capabilities can be improved. Relating in Psychotherapy can have applications in psychotherapy and in couple and family therapy, and will be an invaluable resource for therapists, counsellors and other mental health professionals.

In this book, the author argues and demonstrates that embodiment and relationship are inseparable, both in human existence and in the practice of psychotherapy. It is helpful for psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, counsellor, or other psychopractitioner.

Emotional crises and breakdowns are not things going wrong in individuals’ minds: they are disturbances in their relations with themselves and others. In psychotherapy an attempt is made to resolve such crises through a therapeutic relationship with an individual or in a group. First published in 1984, this book introduces the theory of individual and group therapy, and explains some of its principles in practice. Although there had been a rapid development of ideas in the area of psychotherapy at the time, it was only shortly before the original publication of this book that these had been related to theory. Keith Oatley assesses the influence of cognitive social psychology, psychoanalysis and the existential/phenomenological tradition, and considers the role of emotions, thinking and social interactions in therapeutic transformation. The theory, he argues, must also be related to the research findings on the outcomes of different therapies. This book is for those who study psychotherapy in psychology, psychiatry, counselling and social work – and for anyone who wants to know what psychotherapy was about in the 1980s.

Embodied Being is unique among books on manual therapy, offering an "infrastructure for intuition," a philosophical approach to what is essentially a practical process of diagnosis and treatment with one's hands. Grounded in the author's decades of practice as a Rolfer and Zen meditator, the book offers a first-of-its-kind three-step method for training practitioners how to see holistically, given the enormously important role perception plays in assessing clients. By exposing many of the unconscious philosophical assumptions that occlude our understanding the depths of manual therapy, Embodied Being promises to illuminate the full scope of body-mind healing, from the point of view of both the practitioner and the person receiving the work. Embodied Being states the principles of intervention and shows practitioners how to use them to answer three fundamental questions common to all forms of therapy: What do I do first? What do I do next? and When am I finished? Perplexed that most practitioners are unable to answer these questions and simply rely on their intuition, Maitland sets out to define what makes a truly life-altering bodywork session, drawing on his understanding of Goethe, Merleau-Ponty, and other great thinkers. Maitland proposes that the holistic approach in bodywork is capable of creating new possibilities for the future by erasing the patterns that bind us to a dysfunctional past. Such sessions can so profoundly reshape the body that there is no longer any room for emotional torment--thus manual therapy can free bodies of physical pain, releasing the innate joy within the core of all human beings. Ultimately, giving and receiving manual therapy teaches both practitioners and clients how to move with grace, open their hearts, and touch the numinous.

The Dictionary of Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling is a comprehensive lexicon of existential terms, their meaning and application. With over 350 entries (cross-referenced throughout), the book is the ideal companion to studying the the ideas of existential pioneers, such as Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Sartre. Drawing on their experience as existential practitioners, Emmy van Deurzen and Raymond Kenward achieve the difficult task of making complex philosophical concepts accessible and practically relevant. Through the use of illustrative quotations and examples, they translate existential terminology into everyday language and show how the ideas are employed in practice. They also examine associated themes such as sexuality and religion and appraise the main strengths, weaknesses and limits of the existential approach. The Dictionary of Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling will be invaluable to all trainees and practitioners of the existential approach and to all counsellors and psychotherapists who recognise the centrality of philosophical concepts to their practice.

Psychotherapy is a $2.5 billion business in the United States, but no one can answer the basic question of how therapy works. No watchdog groups rank therapists for potential consumers; no one school of thought has proven to be superior to another. And no method has emerged for determining what makes therapy successful for some but not for others. Doing Psychotherapy Effectively proposes much-needed answers to the puzzling questions of what therapists actually do when they are effective. Mona Sue Weissmark and Daniel A. Giacomo offer a unique mode of evaluation that focuses not on a particular school of therapy but on the relationship between therapist and patient. Their approach, the "Harvard Psychotherapy Coding Method," begins with the assumption that good therapeutic relationships are far from intuitive. Successful relationships follow a pattern of behaviors that can be identified and quantified, as the authors demonstrate through clinical research and videotaped sessions of expert therapists. Likewise, positive changes in the patient, observed through client feedback and case studies, can be described operationally; they involve the process of overcoming feelings of detachment, helplessness, and rigidity and becoming more involved, effective, and adaptable. Weissmark and Giacomo explain and ground these principles in the practice of psychotherapy, making Doing Psychotherapy Effectively an accessible and pragmatic work which will give readers a tool for measuring therapeutic effectiveness and further understanding human transformation. For the first time, successful therapy is described in a way that can be practiced and communicated.