Existential Therapies


Mick Cooper - 2003
    With welcome clarity and sanity, Mick Cooper efficiently lays out the concepts, techniques and directions adopted by several key figures in the broad field of existentially informed psychotherapy. In an excellent first chapter, Mick Cooper pointed out my `ontic′ from my `ontological′; and I could see, behind the long-words-with-dashes, the true resonance of these ideas with real human and therapeutic issues, dilemmas and goals′ - Clinical Psychology `This book proves to be a real treasure chest: what you always wanted to know about existential psychotherapy but failed to find anywhere else in such a comprehensive, clear and concise manner. In that sense, this publication provides a missing link. One merit of the book is its systematic structure. As extensive, and in part as heterogeneous as existential philosophy and therapy also maybe, Mick Cooper had nevertheless been able to build convincing clusters with, on the one hand, an enormous understanding of details and, on the other, a far-sightedness that, like a map, provides orientation in the diversity of existential therapy. I really appreciate this publication and can recommend it very strongly′ - Person-Centred and Experiential Psychotherapies `Existential Therapies will I suspect, suddenly make existentialism come alive. The author, Mick Cooper loves his subject, it fascinates and enthrals him, and we get to experience some of that, even though the book is academic. The connections and overlaps with person-centred psychology are there for us to be, but so are the differences′ - Person-Centred Practice `As an overview of a number of different existential therapies the book is extremely welcome and manages in a relatively short space to cover a wide arena. Overall I rate the book highly. To pull together a large and somewhat disparate literature, then make sense of it and finally retains the reader′s interest, is difficult′ - Existential Analysis `Mick Cooper has done an impressive job in writing a much needed, current and user friendly survey of the field of existential therapies. If I were to teach this course, I would use this book. I applaud Mick Cooper for having admirably achieved the aim he set out to achieve. All this makes Mick Cooper′s book a must-read for anyone wishing to explore the topic of existential therapy′ - Society for Laingian Studies Website `What makes this book unique is that all the different strands of Existential philosophy are always clearly linked to practice′ - Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal `This is a very fresh book, not treading well-worn paths and genuinely informing us about a small but important field. This is really an indispensable book for anyone who wants to understand existentialist approaches to therapy′ - Self and Society `This publication marks a milestone providing an excellent, clear and critical overview of the contrasting forms of the approach as it is currently practised′ - Emmy van Deurzen, New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, Schiller University, London `This is a book of superb thoroughness and scholarship - an unprecedented guide to existential therapy′s chief positions and controversies′ - Kirk J Schneider, President of the Existential-Humanistic Institute, USA `Combines scholarship with a writing style that makes difficult concepts accessible. This book should be required reading on any course where the existential tradition plays a part, and that includes person-centred courses and all sympathetic to the idea that psychotherapy is, in essence, a human encounter where warmth, understanding and a deep respect for the individual are key values′ - Tony Merry, University of East London What does it mean to practice in an existential way? What are the different existential approaches? What are their strengths and limitations? Existential Therapies addresses these key questions, and more, by providing students and practitioners with an invaluable introduction to the diverse and multifaceted world of existential therapeutic practices.Focusing on practical, face-to-face work with clients, the book:- introduces readers to six key existential therapies- discusses key figures and their contributions, including Irvin Yalom, Emmy van Deurzen, Ernesto Spinelli, Viktor Frankl and R D Laing- compares and contrasts the various approaches,highlighting areas of commonality and difference- outlines key debates within the existential therapy field- provides detailed suggestions for further readingExistential Therapies offers students and practitioners of all orientations much that they can incorporate into their own therapeutic work, and each approach is vividly brought to life through therapist-client dialogues and case studies. Written in an accessible, warm, and engaging manner, Existential Therapies is an essential introduction to this rich, vibrant and stimulating field.

Theories of Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Case Approach


Nancy L. Murdock - 2003
    At the beginning each chapter, readers “meet” a new client through a case example. The author then presents the theory’s basic philosophical assumptions; its beliefs about what motivates human behavior; its central constructs; its picture of how humans develop; its ideas about what constitutes mental health and dysfunction; its perspective on how our relationships with those around us impact our functioning; and its view of how our behavior, thoughts, and emotion impact our functioning. Throughout each chapter, the author immediately illustrates the application of a construct or process by showing how it relates to the client case described at the beginning of the chapter, demonstrating the translation of each theory into practice. The second edition includes three new chapters (Chapter 3: Neoanalytic Approaches, Chapter 6: Existential Psychotherapy, Chapter 15: Narrative Therapy) and a companion DVD to accompany the texts. See applications of theory come to life! The Theories in Action DVD illustrates six therapists of different theoretical orientations working with the same client.

Co-Creating Change: Effective Dynamic Therapy Techniques


Jon Frederickson - 2013
    Co-Creating Change includes clinical vignettes that illustrate hundreds of therapeutic impasses taken from actual sessions, showing how to understand patients and how to intervene effectively. The book provides clear, systematic steps for assessing patients' needs and intervening to develop an effective relationship for change. Co-Creating Change presents an integrative theory that uses elements of behavior therapy, cognitive therapy, emotion-focused therapy, psychoanalysis, and mindfulness. This empirically validated treatment is effective with a wide range of patients.

Existential Psychotherapy


Irvin D. Yalom - 1980
    The noted Stanford University psychiatrist distills the essence of a wide range of therapies into a masterful, creative synthesis, opening up a new way of understanding each person's confrontation with four ultimate concerns: isolation, meaninglessness, death, and freedom.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works for Me - It Can Work for You


Albert Ellis - 2004
    Part memoir and part self-help guide, this very personal story traces the private struggles that Ellis faced from early childhood to well into his adult life. Whether you are already familiar with Ellis’s many best-selling psychology books or are discovering his work for the first time, you will gain many insights into how to deal with your problems by seeing how Ellis learned to cope with his own serious challenges.In his early life, Ellis was faced with a major physical disability, chronic nephritis, which plagued him from age five to nine and led to hospitalization. This experience then caused the emotional reaction of separation anxiety. At this time he also suffered from severe, migraine-like headaches, which persisted into his forties. Later in life, he realized that some of his emotional upset was the result of initially taking parental neglect too seriously. Active and energetic by nature, he gradually learned that the best way to cope with any problem, physical or emotional, was to stop "catastrophizing" and to do something to correct it.As Ellis points out in all of his work, when faced with adversity, we must realize that we have a real choice, either to think rationally about the problem or to react irrationally. The first choice leads to healthy consequences—normal emotions such as sorrow, regret, frustration, or annoyance, which are justifiable reactions to troubling situations. The second choice leads to the unhealthy consequences of anxiety, depression, rage, and low self-esteem. When we recognize irrational beliefs as such, we must then use our reason to dispute their validity. Ellis goes on to describe how these techniques helped him to cope with many other adult emotional problems, including failure in love affairs, shame, anger, distress over his parents’ divorce, stress from others’ reactions to his atheistic convictions, and upset due to his attitudes about academic and professional setbacks.Honest and unflinching yet always positive and forward-looking, Ellis demonstrates how to gain and grow from trying experiences through rational thinking.

The Search for Existential Identity: Patient-Therapist Dialogues in Humanistic Psychotherapy


James F.T. Bugental - 1976
    Six detailed descriptions of day-to-day exchanges between a therapist and his patients demonstrate the events and processes that occur during the course of humanistic psychotherapy.

A Way of Being


Carl R. Rogers - 1980
    A Way of Being was written in the early 1980s, near the end of Carl Rogers's career, and serves as a coda to his classic On Becoming a Person. More philosophical than his earlier writings, it traces his professional and personal development and ends with a prophetic call for a more humane future.

Love and Will


Rollo May - 1969
    Bringing fresh insight to these concepts, May shows how we can attain a deeper consciousness.

Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning


Viktor E. Frankl - 1974
    Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning explores the sometime unconscious human desire for inspiration or revelation, and illustrates how life can offer profound meaning at every turn.

Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy


Dave Mearns - 2005
    Focusing on the concept of 'relational depth', authors Dave Mearns and Mick Cooper describe a form of encounter in which therapist and client experience profound feelings of contact and engagement with each other and in which the client has an opportunity to explore whatever is experienced as most fundamental to her or his existence.

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror


Judith Lewis Herman - 1992
    In the intervening years, Herman’s volume has changed the way we think about and treat traumatic events and trauma victims. In a new afterword, Herman chronicles the incredible response the book has elicited and explains how the issues surrounding the topic have shifted within the clinical community and the culture at large. Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually. Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context. Meticulously documented and frequently using the victims’ own words as well as those from classic literary works and prison diaries, Trauma and Recovery is a powerful work that will continue to profoundly impact our thinking.

Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Contours of Theory & Practice


Erving Polster - 1973
    For the student and the professional.

The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse


Ellen Bass - 1988
    Although the effects of child sexual abuse are long-term and severe, healing is possible.Weaving together personal experience with professional knowledge, the authors provide clear explanations, practical suggestions, and support throughout the healing process. Readers will feel recognized and encouraged by hundreds of moving first-person stories drawn from interviews and the authors' extensive work with survivors, both nationally and internationally.This completely revised and updated 20th anniversary edition continues to provide the compassionate wisdom the book has been famous for, as well as many new features:Contemporary research on trauma and the brainAn overview of powerful new healing tools such as imagery, meditation, and body-centered practicesAdditional stories that reflect an even greater diversity of survivor experiencesThe reassuring accounts of survivors who have been healing for more than twenty yearsThe most comprehensive, up-to-date resource guide in the fieldInsights from the authors' decades of experienceCherished by survivors, and recommended by therapists and institutions everywhere, The Courage to Heal has often been called the bible of healing from child sexual abuse. This new edition will continue to serve as the healing beacon it has always been.

Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love


Sue Johnson - 2008
    In Hold Me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson presents Emotionally Focused Therapy to the general public for the first time. Johnson teaches that the way to save and enrich a relationship is to reestablish safe emotional connection and preserve the attachment bond. With this in mind, she focuses on key moments in a relationship-from "Recognizing the Demon Dialogue" to "Revisiting a Rocky Moment" -- and uses them as touch points for seven healing conversations.Through case studies from her practice, illuminating advice, and practical exercises, couples will learn how to nurture their relationships and ensure a lifetime of love.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Clinical Manual


Deborah L. Cabaniss - 2010
    This book offers a practical, step-by-step guide to the technique of psychodynamic psychotherapy, with instruction on listening, reflecting, and intervening. It will systematically take the reader from evaluation to termination using straightforward language and carefully annotated examples. Written by experienced educators and based on a tried and tested syllabus, this book provides clinically relevant and accessible aspects of theories of treatment processes. The workbook style exercises in this book allow readers to practice what they learn in each section and more "actively" learn as they read the book.This book will teach you:About psychodynamic psychotherapy and some of the ways it is hypothesized to work How to evaluate patients for psychodynamic psychotherapy, including assessment of ego function and defenses The essentials for beginning the treatment, including fostering the therapeutic alliance, setting the frame, and setting goals A systematic way for listening to patients, reflecting on what you've heard, and making choices about how and what to say How to apply the Listen/Reflect/Intervene method to the essential elements of psychodynamic technique How these techniques are used to address problems with self esteem, relationships with others, characteristic ways of adapting, and other ego functions Ways in which technique shifts over time This book presents complex concepts in a clear way that will be approachable for all readers. It is an invaluable guide for psychiatry residents, psychology students, and social work students, but also offers practicing clinicians in these areas a new way to think about psychodynamic psychotherapy. The practical approach and guided exercises make this an exceptional tool for psychotherapy educators teaching all levels of learners.This book includes a companion website: www.wiley.com/go/cabaniss/psychotherapywith the "Listening Exercise" for Chapter 16 (Learning to Listen). This is a short recording that will help the reader to learn about different ways we listen.Praise for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Clinical Manual"This book has a more practical, hands-on, active learning approach than existing books on psychodynamic therapy."Bob Bornstein, co-editor of Principles of Psychotherapy; Adelphi University, NY"Well-written, concise and crystal clear for any clinician who wishes to understand and practice psychodynamic psychotherapy. Full of real-world clinical vignettes, jargon-free and useful in understanding how to assess, introduce and begin psychotherapy with a patient. Extraordinarily practical with numerous examples of how to listen to and talk with patients while retaining a sophistication about the complexity of the therapeutic interaction. My trainees have said that this book finally allowed them to understand what psychodynamic psychotherapy is all about!"--Debra Katz, Vice Chair for Education at the University of Kentucky and Director of Psychiatry Residency Training"This volume offers a comprehensive learning guide for psychodynamic psychotherapy training."--Robert Glick, Professor, Columbia University