Relational Child Psychotherapy

"The relational and the developmental point of view have never been brought together in an adequate way. This up-to-date scholarly, yet practical, integration opens a new vista within relational psychoanalysis and pioneers a fresh approach in the psychoanalytic treatment of children and adolescents. It is a work of great and lasting value to the field." –Peter Fonagy

"The relational and the developmental point of view have never been brought together in an adequate way. This up-to-date scholarly, yet practical, integration opens a new vista within relational psychoanalysis and pioneers a fresh approach in the psychoanalytic treatment of children and adolescents. It is a work of great and lasting value to the field." —Peter Fonagy Child therapists practicing today are faced with the challenge of developing a coherent theory and technique while drawing on a number of diverse traditions as disparate as psychoanalysis, behavior therapy, and family systems theory. This diversity presents child therapists with a rich background, but it also presents a formidable complexity to be integrated into their therapeutic work. This book develops such an integration, offering a complete overview of issues currently being addressed by clinicians and theoreticians, and exploring various relational models and their implications for treatment. The authors bring to light the critical issues of clinical practice with children and offer powerful new models for child psychotherapists. The problems and strategies for approaching the clinical relationship between child and therapist, as well as that between parent and therapist, are examined in depth. The authors also explore the clinical setting versus the role of the therapist in the extra-clinical context of a child’s life, the therapeutic aspects of play, and the unique behaviors of children manifested in the therapeutic environment.

Volume II in the Evolution of Gestalt series, Relational Child, Relational Brain continues the development of the paradigm shift that places human development in a field that is deeply complex and fundamentally one of interconnection, taking us away from the limiting view of us as separate individuals. It builds on the foundation of contemporary views of relational neurodevelopment and the profound influence of relationship on brain growth. It shows how, particularly in the first two years of life, but continuing across the whole of childhood and adolescence into early adulthood, the relational field is the context of child development. The focus then broadens out to examine the intersubjective influence of community, culture, and social and physical support. Backed by neurobiological and related research, it offers many examples of relational Gestalt practice with children, adolescents, and their families, with stories of loss, trauma, isolation, and other adversities. Not just an invaluable resource for child and adolescent therapists, Relational Child, Relational Brain goes beyond the Esalen Study Conference from which it emerged and is a further invitation and challenge to apply relational Gestalt practice as a coherent and effective way forward in the troubled world of today.

Building on relational conceptualizations of enactment and on developmental research that attests to the role of embodied, nonverbal language in the meanings children impute to their experiences, Sebastiano Santostefano offers this compelling demonstration of effective child therapy conducted in the “great outdoors.” Specifically, he argues that, for the child, traumatic life-metaphors should be resolved at an embodied rather than an exclusively verbal level; they should be resolved, that is, as they are enacted between child and therapist. To this end, child and therapist must take advantage of all the indoor and outdoor environments available to them. As they take therapy to nontraditional places, relying on the nonverbal vocabulary they have constructed together, they move toward enacted solutions to relational crises, solutions that revise the child’s sense of self and ability to form new and productive relationships.

The new edition of Relational Psychotherapy offers a theory that’s immediately applicable to everyday practice, from opening sessions through intensive engagement to termination. In clear, engaging prose, the new edition makes explicit the ethical framework implied in the first edition, addresses the major concepts basic to relational practice, and elucidates the lessons learned since the first edition's publication. It’s the ideal guide for beginning practitioners but will also be useful to experienced practitioners and to clients interested in the therapy process.

Animals as the Third in Relational Psychotherapy: Exploring Theory, Frame and Practice elegantly and skilfully weaves together relevant literature, clinical reflections, compelling case material and contemporary psychoanalytic theory to demonstrate how the presence of an animal in the treatment arena can eventually bring about relational, interpersonal and intrapsychic change. Contemporary relational psychoanalytic literature has been virtually silent about our relationship with animals, a feature seemingly intrinsic to our relational worlds. This book seeks to remediate this void by giving voice to the practice and principles of working relationally in the presence of an animal. The text accentuates recurrent themes: animals are seen by human beings as significant subjective others and are treated as legitimate partners for relational and interpersonal processes, attachment figures and transferential objects; animals in the psychotherapy environment can play the role as a ‘bridge’ from the unconscious to the conscious, from the dissociated to the experienced, from the intrapsychic to the interpersonal; as the third in the treatment arena, the animal helps to reveal the field, bringing conflicts to life and making them available for analysis in the clinical setting. In seeking to authorise the incorporation of animals into the practice of relational psychotherapy the text applies conventional concepts to novel contexts; it extends psychoanalytic and relational principles to create a theoretical framework within which to consider the therapeutic effects of working in the triadic interactions of therapist, client and animal and thus also begins to evolve a new version of relational psychoanalytic practice. The authors value the human-animal experience in treatment and repeatedly show how the application of a relational psychoanalytic lens to the patient-therapist-animal triad can enhance the therapeutic process in ways that encourage progressive communication, understanding of the patient and the relaxing of defences, leading to the symbolising of relational capacity, therapeutic breakthrough and intrapsychic change.

Winner of the 2014 Goethe Award for Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Scholarship! A Relational Psychoanalytic Approach to Couples Psychotherapy presents an original model of couples treatment integrating ideas from a host of authors in relational psychoanalysis. It also includes other psychoanalytic traditions as well as ideas from other social sciences. This book addresses a vacuum in contemporary psychoanalysis devoid of a comprehensively relational way to think about the practice of psychoanalytically oriented couples treatment. In this book,Philip Ringstrom sets out a theory of practice that is based on three broad themes: The actualization of self experience in an intimate relationship The partners' capacity for mutual recognition versus mutual negation The relationship having a mind of its own Based on these three themes, Ringstrom's model of treatment is articulated in six non-linear, non-hierarchical steps that wed theory with practice - each powerfully illustrated with case material. These steps initially address the therapist’s attunement to the partners' disparate subjectivities including the critical importance of each one's perspective on the "reality" they co-habit.Their perspectives are fleshed out through the exploration of their developmental histories with focus on factors of gender and culture and more. Out of this arises the examination of how conflictual pasts manifest in dissociated self-states, the illumination of which lends to the enrichment of self-actualization, the facilitation of mutual recognition, and the capacity to more genuinely renegotiate their relationship. The book concludes with a chapter that illustrates one couple treated through all six steps and a chapter on frequently asked questions ("FAQ's") derived from over thirty years of practice, teaching, supervision and presentations during the course of this books development. A Relational Psychoanalytic Approach to Couples Psychotherapy balances a great range of ways to work with couples, while also providing the means to authentically negotiate their differences in a way which is insightful and invaluable. This book is for practitioners of couples therapy and psychoanalytic practitioners. It is also aimed at undergraduate, graduates, and postgraduate students in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, marriage and family therapy, and social work.