Transforming Therapy

Oaxaca is known for many things--its indigenous groups, archaeological sites, crafts, and textiles--but not for mental health care. When one talks with Oaxacans about mental health, most say it's a taboo topic and that people there think you "have to be crazy to go to a psychologist." Yet throughout Oaxaca are signs advertising the services of psicólogos; there are prominent conferences of mental health professionals; and self-help groups like Neurotics Anonymous thrive, where participants rise to say, "Hola, mi nombre es Raquel, y soy neurótica." How does one explain the recent growth of Euroamerican-style therapies in the region? Author Whitney L. Duncan analyzes this phenomenon of "psy-globalization" and develops a rich ethnography of its effects on Oaxacans' understandings of themselves and their emotions, ultimately showing how globalizing forms of care are transformative for and transformed by the local context. She also delves into the mental health impacts of migration from Mexico to the United States, both for migrants who return and for the family members they leave behind. This book is a recipient of the Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Prize from Vanderbilt University Press for the best book in the area of medicine.

This practical manual is packed with illuminating case studies and specialised techniques using past life and regression therapy, suitable for any therapist.

Transforming Themes challenges the dominant view of psychotherapy as a structured, reductionist process. Instead, it views psychotherapy as an alive, unrehearsed interaction that embraces healing when it is focused on the role of 'therapeutic themes'. These themes are the entrenched frames of references or contexts from which clients perceive their lives. In any interaction, each participant has a unique worldview. When clients come to therapy, they bring their problems in the form of a theme: 'the woman who can't forgive' or 'the child who is a terror'. Any potential statement or action performed within this theme merely strengthens the problem. Only when the theme of the therapy session has shifted can clients gain access to inner resources to shift perspectives and begin inner transformation. Effective therapy results from moving clients into more flexible, empowering themes. These changes occur as a result of the dynamic interaction between therapist and client, which embraces improvisation, creativity, and novelty, rather than adherence to specific theories or techniques. Using historical and modern research and colourful case studies, this work will help professionals understand how to easily adapt and apply creative and resourceful therapy interventions, no matter what therapeutic orientation they endorse. This book will enable therapists, counsellors, psychologists, and social workers to gain access to creative, effective methods which help their clients heal while increasing effectiveness and enjoyment in clinical work.

Emotion-focused therapy is a research-informed psychological therapy that to date has mainly been studied in the context of depression, trauma and couple distress. The evidence suggests that this therapy has a lasting and transformative effect. Ladislav Timulak presents EFT as a particular therapeutic approach that addresses psychological human suffering, offering a view that puts more emphasis on attending to the distress, rather than avoiding or suppressing it. Focusing on the latest developments in EFT, Transforming Emotional Pain in Psychotherapy presents a theory of human suffering and a model of therapy that addresses that suffering. The model of suffering assumes that the experienced emotional pain is a response to an injury that prevents or violates the fulfilment of the basic human needs of being loved, safe, and acknowledged. This book focuses on a particular way of transforming emotional pain in psychotherapy through: helping the client to tolerate the pain; assisting the client to identify the core of the difficult emotional experiences; identifying the needs connected to the core pain which are unmet or being violated, and responding (with compassion and protective anger) to the underlying needs of the client that transforms the original pain. Transforming Emotional Pain in Psychotherapy provides an account of how emotional pain can be conceptualised and how it can be addressed in therapy. It provides practical tips for therapists working with emotional pain and shows how it can then be made more bearable and transformed allowing the client to be more sensitive to the pain of others, and to seek support when needed. This book will be essential reading for clinical and counselling psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors in practice and training, as well as for fully qualified professionals undergoing further training in EFT.

Emotion-focused therapy is a research-informed psychological therapy that to date has mainly been studied in the context of depression, trauma and couple distress. The evidence suggests that this therapy has a lasting and transformative effect. Ladislav Timulak presents EFT as a particular therapeutic approach that addresses psychological human suffering, offering a view that puts more emphasis on attending to the distress, rather than avoiding or suppressing it. Focusing on the latest developments in EFT, Transforming Emotional Pain in Psychotherapy presents a theory of human suffering and a model of therapy that addresses that suffering. The model of suffering assumes that the experienced emotional pain is a response to an injury that prevents or violates the fulfilment of the basic human needs of being loved, safe, and acknowledged. This book focuses on a particular way of transforming emotional pain in psychotherapy through: helping the client to tolerate the pain; assisting the client to identify the core of the difficult emotional experiences; identifying the needs connected to the core pain which are unmet or being violated, and responding (with compassion and protective anger) to the underlying needs of the client that transforms the original pain. Transforming Emotional Pain in Psychotherapy provides an account of how emotional pain can be conceptualised and how it can be addressed in therapy. It provides practical tips for therapists working with emotional pain and shows how it can then be made more bearable and transformed allowing the client to be more sensitive to the pain of others, and to seek support when needed. This book will be essential reading for clinical and counselling psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors in practice and training, as well as for fully qualified professionals undergoing further training in EFT.

Having misused women, power and the life-energy of his followers, the Seeker must overcome his demons – not figuratively but literally – in the astral, etheric and physical dimensions of reality. But in order to face them, he must first cross the threshold to the spiritual world… Transforming Demons takes us on an astonishing journey – from contemporary Norway to Ancient Atlantis, to Ireland and India – where we encounter leprechauns, dragons, evil spirits, hallucinogenic drugs, and a mysterious golden cross with a red ruby at its heart. With hubris, arrogance and deceit, the Seeker has abused his magical powers in previous existences. If he is finally to resolve his knotted karma, he must first confront his misdeeds, and the demons that were created as a result. Then he must learn to transform those demons in order to free them – and him – from the weight of his past. This is a remarkable true memoir that crosses lifetimes, thousands of years and manifold dimensions. It is an authentic story of transformation and redemption on the path to self-knowledge, freedom and love.

Transforming Generalized Anxiety: An Emotion Focused Approach examines an approach to treating generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) which attempts to uncover the deeper, underlying emotional experiences that clients are afraid of. It also demonstrates how these painful experiences can be transformed in therapy into a form of emotional resilience by generating experiences of self-compassion and healthy, boundary setting, protective anger. Though most of the literature on treating GAD is dominated by Cognitive Behavior Therapy, this book presents emotion-focused therapy as an alternative treatment of this condition. The emotional resilience this particular approach instils serves as a resource when encountering triggers of emotional vulnerability, but also decreases the client’s need to avoid hitherto feared triggers and the emotional experiences they bring. Developed in a series of research studies, and illustrated with reference to case examples, this book offers a practical, theoretically informed, evidence based guide, to conducting therapy with clients. Using clinical material, and applying the outcome of a series of research studies, Transforming Generalized Anxiety will equip psychotherapists and counsellors with the means to help GAD clients transform core painful experiences into a sense of empowerment and inner confidence.