Transformational Chairwork

Transformational Chairwork: Using Psychotherapeutic Dialogues in Clinical Practice is an exposition of the art and science of Chairwork. It is also a practical handbook for using the Chairwork method effectively with a wide range of clinical problems. Originally created by Dr. Jacob Moreno in the 1950s and then further developed by Dr. Fritz Perls in the 1960s, Chairwork has been embraced and re-envisioned by therapists from cognitive, behavioral, existential, Jungian, experiential, psychodynamic, and integrative perspectives. Transformational Chairwork builds on this rich and creative legacy and provides a model that is both integrative and trans-theoretical. The book familiarizes clinicians with essential dialogue strategies and empowers them to create therapeutic encounters and re-enactments. Chairwork interventions can be broadly organized along the lines of external and internal dialogues. The external dialogues can be used to help patients work though grief and loss, heal from interpersonal abuse and trauma, manage difficult relationships, and develop and strengthen their assertive voice. The internal dialogues in turn focus on resolving inner conflicts, combatting the negative impact of the inner critic and the experience of self-hatred, working with dreams and nightmares, and expanding the self through polarity work. Using both internal and external strategies, this book explores how Chairwork dialogues can be a powerful intervention when working with addictions, social oppression, medical issues, and psychosis. This is done through the use of compelling clinical examples and scripts that can be read, studied, and enacted. Chairwork’s central emphasis is helping patients express each of their voices as distinctly and as forcefully as possible. The book concludes with a review of the deepening technique—the strategies that therapists can use to help facilitate clarity and existential ownership.

Cognitive Behavioural Chairwork: Distinctive Features provides a practical, accessible, and concise introduction to both the theory and practice of chairwork, one of the most powerful and exciting methods of intervention in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and is the first book to synthesise its many applications in CBT and allied therapies. Part of the popular 'CBT Distinctive Features' series, this book contains a wealth of effective experiential procedures for working with automatic thoughts, emotions, behaviours, core beliefs, ambivalence, strengths, well-being, and cognitive processes such as worry and self-criticism. Readers will also learn how chairwork is applied in other areas, such as clinical supervision and associated psychotherapeutic approaches including compassion focused therapy, schema therapy, positive psychotherapy, and motivational interviewing. Techniques are presented in an easy-to-understand format and illustrated using clinical examples and therapy transcripts. The result is a comprehensive guide which demystifies chairwork and places it at the heart of CBT’s continued evolution. Created for practising clinicians, researchers, and training therapists, Cognitive Behavioural Chairwork: Distinctive Features will appeal to both individuals who are new to chairwork and those who are familiar with its techniques.

Levin examines what therapists can do to help the victims of narcissistic wounds to integrate, mourn, and heal them. He shows the nature of the injuries to each party and considers ways to minimize them, since treatment itself can seem an injury to both patient and therapist.

Healing in Action: Adventure-Based Counseling with Therapy Groups is a practical guide for therapists wanting to integrate interactive games and challenges into their work. It provides current research supporting using ABC with trauma survivors and those recovering from addictions, as well as its efficacy with a broader population. Twelve activity-based chapters take the reader through various one-hour sessions of activities based on a particular theme or material used, complete with 50 descriptive photos of groups in action. Therapists will be able to use these activities to help their patients experience in vivo the joy, freedom and playfulness that are the hallmarks of sound mental health. With its combination of sound theoretical material and practical application, this book is a valuable resource for practitioners and graduate students alike.

Clinical Problem Solving Case Management provides an innovative approach to client mental health skill development. The LIBRE Model (Listen-Identify-Brainstorm-Reality test-Encourage) and LIBRE Model Stick Figure Tool are integral case management components that provide the client a social cognitive platform to identify concerns. The clinician, before beginning assessment, uses the tool to check in with an understanding of his her perspective and biases. And then, in partnership, the clinician is able to assess the clientwithin their own worldview, which enables acceptance for interventions and evaluation plans. The problem solving approach provides the client a processing intervention to create a win-win experience for the client and clinician.

This unique resource helps therapists build their skills in schema therapy (ST) by applying ST techniques to themselves and reflecting on the experience. Designed for use by individuals or groups, the book harnesses the power of self-practice/self-reflection (SP/SR), an evidence-based training strategy. Twenty modules take therapists step by step through using ST to address a professional or personal problem--from establishing safety and creating a self-conceptualization to implementing mode change work, including cognitive, experiential, and behavioral pattern-breaking interventions. In a convenient large-size format, the book is illustrated with vivid therapist examples and features numerous reproducible worksheets and forms for doing the SP/SR exercises. Purchasers get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials.ÿ ÿ

Compassion-Based Approaches in Loss and Grief introduces clinicians to a wide array of strategies and frameworks for engaging clients throughout the loss experience, particularly when those experiences have a protracted course. In the book, clinicians and researchers from around the world and from a variety of fields explore ways to cultivate compassion and how to implement compassion-based clinical practices specifically designed to address loss, grief, and bereavement. Students, scholars, and mental health and healthcare professionals will come away from this important book with a deepened understanding of compassion-based approaches and strategies for enhancing distress tolerance, maintaining focus, and identifying the clinical interventions best suited to clients’ needs.

Detached, alienated people, many of them functioning with a pathologically developed false self, barely navigate life's challenges. Our cultural emphasis on autonomy and separateness has led to a retreat from valuing interpersonal, communal dependence and has greatly contributed to a rise in the number of people whose suffering is often expressed in addictions and personality disorders. Using actual patient material including diaries and letters, Karen Walant's Creating the Capacity for Attachment shows how "immersive moments" in therapy—moments of complete understanding between patient and therapist—are powerful enough to dislodge the alienated, detached self from its hiding place and enable the individual to begin incorporating his or her inner core into his or her external, social self.