Mary Sherrill Durham explores the concepts of vengeance, revenge fantasies, and the granting or withholding of forgiveness, as they are manifested to the therapist during treatment. She also examines potential for the therapist/patient relationship to become a re-enactment of an abusive or controlling situation.

This is the story,based on actual events, of the encounter face to face of a soldier and God while in combat operations in Northern Iraq during the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

Given the current climate of political division and global conflict it is not surprising that there has been an increasing interest in how we ought to respond to perceived wrongdoing, both personal and political. In this volume, top scholars from around the world contribute all new original essays on the ethics of forgiveness, revenge, and punishment. This book draws on both historical and contemporary debates in order to answer important questions about the nature of forgiveness, the power of apology, the relationship between punishment and revenge, the path to reconciliation, the morality of blame, and the role of forgiveness in political conflict. Chapter 16 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Many people come for help because they remain stuck in a destructive relationship, job or legal battle, or with painful memories of child abuse. But does it necessarily help to forgive?

Therapists use words to help guide their clients through difficult times, but where are the words that can guide the healers as they develop professionally, struggle with difficult cases, adapt to changing times? Here, for practitioners and students, is a reference work which contains the best thoughts of the best thinkers in the field of psychotherapy, addressing the breadth and depth of what it means to be a therapist. Schwartz and Flowers have searched through hundreds of books, old and new, as well as thousands of journal articles, to find those words. The book is organized into nine core topic areas, and includes quotations, the authors' own "modest reflections," relevant case histories, anecdotes and references for further reading. Clients can be difficult and psychotherapy practice stressful. Keep this insightful volume within easy reach--for inspiration, for guidance, for sustenance.

The revenge motif appears in a number of arenas and in different cultures. We need to be mindful of its existence in order to discover how common it is. We can then learn to recognize when destructive revenge spirals are developing. By extension, we thus gain a basis for stopping these spirals successfully before they have gone too far. We can also learn what function revenge plays and has played in various contexts. A short overview of revenge as a motif in literature, film, culture, religion, and at work is therefore given as an introduction to our study of revenge.

The authors in this volume explore the interconnected issues of intergenerational trauma and traumatic memory in societies with a history of collective violence across the globe. Each chapter’s discussion offers a critical reflection on historical trauma and its repercussions, and how memory can be used as a basis for dialogue and transformation. The perspectives include, among others: the healing journey of three generations of a family of Holocaust survivors and their dialogue with third generation German students over time; traumatic memories of the British concentration camps in South Africa; reparations and reconciliation in the context of the historical trauma of Aboriginal Australians; and the use of the arts as a strategy of dialogue and transformation.

Is therapy’s relational turn only something to celebrate? It is a major worldwide trend taking place in all the therapy traditions. But up to now appreciation of these developments has not been twinned with well-informed and constructive critique. Hence practitioners and students have not been able to engage as fully as they might with the complex questions and issues that relational working presents. Relational Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis and Counselling: Appraisals and reappraisals seeks to redress this balance. In this unique book, Del Loewenthal and Andrew Samuels bring together the contributions of writers from several countries and many therapy modalities, all of whom have engaged with what ‘relational’ means – whether to espouse the idea, to urge caution or to engage in sceptical reflection. Relational Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis and Counselling: Appraisals and reappraisals presents clinical work of the highest standard in a way that is moving and draws the reader in. The more intellectual contributions are accessible and respectful, avoiding the polarising tendencies of the profession. At a time when there has been a decline in the provision and standing of the depth therapies across the globe, this book shows that, whatever the criticisms, there is still creative energy in the field. It is hoped that practitioners and students in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy counselling and counselling psychology will welcome this book for its cutting edge content and compassionate tone.

Arthur Robbins demonstrates how important countertransference reactions are as sources of information and understanding of patient/therapist interactions. He presents transcriptions of some group supervision sessions, which emphasize the mixture of cognitive and affective organization which the therapist is continually exploring with the patient.

Morality and mental health are now inseparably linked in our view of character. Alcoholics are sick, yet they are punished for drunk driving. Drug addicts are criminals, but their punishment can be court ordered therapy. The line between character flaws and personality disorders has become fuzzy, with even the seven deadly sins seen as mental disorders. In addition to pathologizing wrong-doing, we also psychologize virtue; self-respect becomes self-esteem, integrity becomes psychological integration, and responsibility becomes maturity. Moral advice is now sought primarily from psychologists and therapists rather than philosophers or theologians. In this wide-ranging, accessible book, Mike W. Martin asks: are we replacing morality with therapy, in potentially confused and dangerous ways, or are we creatively integrating morality and mental health? According to him, it's a little bit of both. He surveys the ways in which morality and mental health are related, touching on practical concerns like love and work, self-respect and self-fulfillment, guilt and depression, crime and violence, and addictions. Terming this integrative development "the therapeutic trend in ethics," Martin uses examples from popular culture, various moral controversies, and draws on a line of thought that includes Plato, the Stoics, Freud, Nietzsche, and contemporary psychotherapeutic theories. Martin develops some interesting conclusions, among them that sound morality is indeed healthy, and that moral values are inevitably embedded in our conceptions of mental health. In the end, he shows how both morality and mental health are inextricably intertwined in our pursuit of a meaningful life. This book will be of interest to philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and sociologists, as well as the general reader.