In the 1910s and '20s, during the golden age of the big top, Mabel Stark was the superstar of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, and one of America's most eccentric celebrities.
The editors of the present volume were also privileged to collaborate on an earlier book, Intimacy, also published by Plenum Press. In our pref ace to that volume, we described the importance and essence of inti macy and its centrality in the domain of human relationships. After reading the contributions to that volume, a number of issues emerged and pressed for elaboration. These questions concerned the nature and parameters of intimacy. The natural extension of these con cerns can be found in the current work, Self-Disclosure in the Therapeutic Relationship. The editors, after careful consideration of the theoretical, philo sophical, and technical literature, are impressed by the relationship between intimacy and appropriate self-disclosure. Self-disclosure, in this context, refers to those behaviors that allow oneself to be suffi ciently revealing so as to become available for an intimate relationship. Levenson has referred to psychotherapy as the demystification of expe rience wherein intimacy emerges during the time that interpersonal vigilance diminishes through growing feelings of safety. Interpersonal experience can be demystified and detoxified by disclosure, openness, and authentic relatedness. This is not an easy process. Before one can be open, make contact, or reach out with authenticity, one must be available to oneself. This means making contact with-and accepting-the dark, fearful, and of ten untouched areas within the person that are often hidden even from oneself. The process of therapy enables those areas to gain conscious ness, be tolerated, and be shared with trusted others.
“Antipsychiatry,” Esalen, psychedelics, and DSM III: Radical challenges to psychiatry and the conventional treatment of mental health in the 1970s. The upheavals of the 1960s gave way to a decade of disruptions in the 1970s, and among the rattled fixtures of American society was mainstream psychiatry. A “Radical Caucus” formed within the psychiatric profession and the “antipsychiatry” movement arose. Critics charged that the mental health establishment was complicit with the military-industrial complex, patients were released from mental institutions, and powerful antipsychotic drugs became available. Meanwhile, practitioners and patients experimented with new approaches to mental health, from primal screaming and the therapeutic use of psychedelics to a new reliance on quantification. In Break on Through, Lucas Richert investigates the radical challenges to psychiatry and to the conventional treatment of mental health that emerged in the 1970s and the lessons they offer for current debates. Drawing on archives and government documents, medical journals, and interviews, and interweaving references to pop (counter)culture into his account, Richert offers fascinating stories of the decade's radical mental health practices. He discusses anti–Vietnam War activism and the new diagnosis of post–traumatic stress disorder given to some veterans; the radical psychiatrists who fought the system (and each other); the entry of New Age–style therapies, including Esalen's Human Potential Movement, into the laissez-faire therapeutic marketplace of the 1970s; the development of DSM III; and the use of LSD, cannabis, and MDMA. Many of these issues have resonance today. Debates over medical marijuana and microdoses of psychedelics echo debates of the 1970s. With rising rates of such disorders as anxiety and depression, practitioners and patients continue to search for therapeutic breakthroughs.
Feminist Psychology introduces a distinctive new mode of doing psychology. This psychology is based on an increasingly popular range of ideas called social constructionism. Within the book, new forms of theory and methods of inquiry relating social constructionism to feminist topics are introduced. Each chapter highlights different topics of special concern within gender studies, especially the psychology of women.
Feminist Therapy as a Political Act explores what is means to politicize therapy and how you can make pyschotherapy a method for creating social and individual change. You’ll find examples and strategies for discussing topics such as empowerment and identity that allow you to provide better services to clients while learning new ideas and methods of feminist therapy. Examining how language, behavior, and political thinking influence therapeutic methods, Feminist Therapy as a Political Act contains suggestions and examples that can be applied to clients in the individual, hospital, or community setting. You’ll discover the rich variety of ways in which therapists politicize the therapy relationship, setting, assumptions, techniques, and dialogues, and find several examples on how to incorporate political consciousness into your sessions. Feminist Therapy as a Political Act gives you insight into several methods and practices, including: integrating specific therapy techniques and the background dialogue of therapy into principles of feminist therapy practices modifying cognitive-behavioral therapy, hypnosis, and other therapy techniques to make them more compatible with feminist principles redefining and reclaiming empowerment for conducting political analysis in feminist psychotherapy recognizing client identity, including race, gender, and sexual identity, to provide clients with better therapy providing information on Japanese feminist counseling in relation to Eastern thought, the women’s liberation movement, and the concepts of independence, dependence, and maternity discussing the challenges of working with men Contributors to Feminist Therapy as a Political Act give you insight into the profession on the international level, for example, examining the challenges to feminist therapists in Japan and describing how survivors of incest and sexual abuse in Israel “went public” with their ordeals through art, poetry, performances, and lectures. Offering diverse methods, techniques, and suggestions that will help you provide better services for your clients, Feminist Therapy as a Political Act also gives you the knowledge and inspiration to make your therapeutic work a political act.
This book describes the work and life of Claude Michel Steiner, a close colleague and friend of Eric Berne, the founder of transactional analysis. Steiner was an early and influential transactional analyst, an exponent of radical psychiatry, and the founder of emotional literacy. Steiner also contributed a number of theories and concepts to the psychological literature. The book comprises edited excerpts from his unpublished autobiography, "Confessions of a Psychomechanic", alongside commentaries and critical essays from colleagues on his major contributions to the fields of psychology, transactional analysis, radical therapy, and emotional literacy. Topics covered include script theory and the theory of strokes, recognition hunger, radical therapy, and the concept of power, and emotional literacy and love. In assessing Steiner’s various contributions, the book also identifies central themes in his work and life and considers the autobiographical nature of theory. This unique collection demonstrates not only the range of Steiner’s insights but also his importance to the wider field and will be essential reading for practitioners and trainees alike.