With a refreshing approach to resistance in therapy, Using Relentless Empathy in the Therapeutic Relationship offers practical tools and tips to help therapists and clinicians across all modalities of counseling work with their most challenging clients. By illustrating the power of empathic responsiveness coupled with attachment science and interventions, the author goes straight to the heart of what’s vital for building strong therapeutic alliances with even the most difficult clients. Using Relentless Empathy in the Therapeutic Relationship presents effective tools that clinicians and therapists can use to move away from pathological diagnostic labels toward engaging with people in their distress. This is a valuable resource to anyone in a helping profession, teaching them to effectively use their most valuable instrument—themselves—by harnessing the power of relentless empathy to shape relationships with not only clients but also the outside world.
Empathy and Mental Health shows mental health professionals how to employ a deeper understanding of subjective, objective, and interpersonal modalities of empathy in their practice. Chapters are full of case studies and examples that demonstrate empathy’s role in challenging and complex encounters, and as each concept and process is introduced, Dr. Clark discusses strategies for responding empathically. The book has a sound theoretical grounding that is informed by extensive material on empathy and empathic understanding from the counseling and psychotherapy literature and related fields of inquiry. Drawing from psychodynamic, existential-humanistic, cognitive behavioral, and other contemporary orientations, this text makes empathy immediately useful and understandable to students and practitioners.
How do we position ourselves, moment by moment, in relation to our patients and how do these positions inform both what we come to know about our patients and how we intervene? Do we participate as neutral object, as empathic self-object, or as authentic subject? Do we strive to enhance the patient's knowledge, to provide a corrective experience, or to work at the intimate edge? In an effort to answer these and other clinically relevant questions about the process of psychotherapeutic change, Martha Stark has developed a comprehensive theory of therapeutic action that integrates the interpretive perspective of classical psychoanalysis (Model 1), the corrective-provision perspective of self psychology and those object relations theories emphasizing the internal 'absence of good' (Model 2), and the relational perspective of contemporary psychoanalysis and those object relations theories emphasizing the internal 'presence of bad' (Model 3). Model I is about knowledge and insight. It is a one-person psychology because its focus is on the patient and the internal workings of her mind. Model 2 is about corrective experience. It is a one-and-a-half-person psychology because its emphasis is not so much on the relationship per se, but on the filling in of the patient's deficits by way of the therapist's corrective provision; what ultimately matters is not who the therapist is, but, rather, what she can offer. Model 3 is about relationship, the real relationship. It is a two-person psychology because its focus is on patients and therapists who relate to each other as real people; it is about mutuality, reciprocity, and intersubjectivity. Whereas Model 2 is about 'give' and involves the therapist's bringing the best of who she is into the room, Model 3 is about 'give-and-take' and involves the therapist's bringing all of who she is into the room. As Dr. Stark repeatedly demonstrates in numerous clinical vignettes, the three modes of therapeutic actionDknowledge, experience, and relationshipDare not mutually exclusive but mutually enhancing. If, as therapists, we can tolerate the necessary uncertainty that comes with the recognition that there is an infinite variety of possibilities for change, then we will be able to enhance the therapeutic potential of each moment and optimize our effectiveness as clinicians.
New York Post Best Book of 2016 We often think of our capacity to experience the suffering of others as the ultimate source of goodness. Many of our wisest policy-makers, activists, scientists, and philosophers agree that the only problem with empathy is that we don’t have enough of it. Nothing could be farther from the truth, argues Yale researcher Paul Bloom. In AGAINST EMPATHY, Bloom reveals empathy to be one of the leading motivators of inequality and immorality in society. Far from helping us to improve the lives of others, empathy is a capricious and irrational emotion that appeals to our narrow prejudices. It muddles our judgment and, ironically, often leads to cruelty. We are at our best when we are smart enough not to rely on it, but to draw instead upon a more distanced compassion. Basing his argument on groundbreaking scientific findings, Bloom makes the case that some of the worst decisions made by individuals and nations—who to give money to, when to go to war, how to respond to climate change, and who to imprison—are too often motivated by honest, yet misplaced, emotions. With precision and wit, he demonstrates how empathy distorts our judgment in every aspect of our lives, from philanthropy and charity to the justice system; from medical care and education to parenting and marriage. Without empathy, Bloom insists, our decisions would be clearer, fairer, and—yes—ultimately more moral. Brilliantly argued, urgent and humane, AGAINST EMPATHY shows us that, when it comes to both major policy decisions and the choices we make in our everyday lives, limiting our impulse toward empathy is often the most compassionate choice we can make.
This is the first and only book in the market that provides a theoretical framework on basic counseling skills. It presents a strong multicultural thread, as well as a strong emphasis on self-awareness. The book discusses the counseling process, the microskills model and helping skills and techniques, and includes integrated case conceptualization. Written for students, counselors, social workers, psychologists, and anyone interested in learning the basic techniques of helping in the context of theory and application to diverse populations.
Jan Wiener makes a central distinction between working 'in' the transference and working 'with' the transference, advocating a flexible approach that takes account of the different kinds of attachment patients can make to their therapists.
Human beings, regardless of age, sex, or state of health, are designed by evolution to form meaningful interpersonal relationships through verbal and nonverbal communication. The theme that empathic human connections are beneficial to the body and mind underlies all 12 chapters of this book, in which empathy is viewed from a multidisciplinary perspective that includes evolutionary biology; neuropsychology; clinical, social, developmental, and educational psychology; and health care delivery and education.
Beautifully crafted stories of psychotherapy-told for the first time from the perspective of the therapist In her long career as a psychotherapist, acclaimed author Lillian Rubin occasionally encountered patients who demanded a very special, even unorthodox, therapeutic approach. For the first time, Dr. Rubin tells the stories of her most fascinating, most challenging case,'from the other side of the couch,' focusing not just on the patient, but on her own inner process as she confronts the issues each case raises. Each of the seven stories she tells is a moving journey into the human psyche, from the secret life of'The Woman Who Wasn't' or the extreme regression of'The White Hat' to the smoldering rage of'The Man with the Beautiful Voice.' Through these captivating tales, and in a thought-provoking introduction, Dr. Rubin illuminates the process of therapy and how it works, especially when rules need to be bent or even broken. For anyone who has been in therapy, or even wondered what happens behind those tightly sealed doors, this book offers a gift of insight.
From best-selling author, Susan M. Johnson, with over 1 million books sold worldwide! This essential text from the leading authority on Emotionally Focused Therapy, Susan M. Johnson, and colleague, T. Leanne Campbell, applies the key interventions of EFT to work with individuals, providing an overview and clinical guide to treating clients with depression, anxiety, and traumatic stress. Designed for therapists at all levels of expertise, Johnson and Campbell focus on introducing clinicians to EFIT interventions, techniques, and change processes in a highly accessible and practical format. The book begins by summarizing attachment theory and science – the theoretical basis of this model – together with the experiential approach to change in psychotherapy. Chapters describe the three stages of EFIT, macro-interventions, such as the EFIT Tango, and various micro-interventions through clinical exercises, case studies, and transcripts to demonstrate this model in practice with individuals, highlighting the unique benefits of EFT as a cross-modality approach for treating emotional disorders. With exercises interwoven throughout the text, this book is built to accompany in-person and online training, helping the practicing clinician offer targeted and empirically tested interventions that not only alleviate symptoms of distress but expand the client’s emotional balance, agency, and sense of self. As the next major extension of the EFT approach, this book will appeal to therapists already working with couples and families as well as those just beginning their professional journey. Psychotherapists, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and mental health workers will also find this book invaluable.
