This work is an orientation to a craft of great richness and interest. The authors describe the defining elements of the accumulated working knowledge of psychodynamic psychotherapy. It revisits the raw pointedness of old questions: What is psychotherapy? What makes it meaningful? What do I say when a patient asks me how therapy works? How long will it take? How does change happen?

Presenting a pragmatic, evidence-based approach to conducting psychodynamic therapy, this engaging guide is firmly grounded in contemporary clinical practice and research. The book reflects an openness to new influences on dynamic technique, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy and positive psychology. It offers a fresh understanding of the most common problems for which patients seek help -- depression, obsessionality, low self-esteem, fear of abandonment, panic, and trauma -- and shows how to organize and deliver effective psychodynamic interventions. Extensive case material illustrates each stage of therapy, from engagement to termination. Special topics include ways to integrate individual treatment with psychopharmacology and with couple or family work.

In Craft and Spirit, Joseph Lichtenberg writes of the craft of exploratory psychotherapy, by which he means the creative skill — even artistry — that mobilizes the spirit of inquiry in therapist and patient and sustains it over the course of psychotherapy. He expatiates on this craft as it pertains to patients of our time — patients who typically bring to therapy backgrounds of insecure attachment and serious concerns about safety and retraumatization. In each of ten chapters, Lichtenberg formulates a different guideline for technique, keyed to the broad domain of exploratory psychotherapies and are accompanied by numerous clinical illustrations. These guidelines seek to foster greater therapist involvement without compromising an openness to psychological exploration. They seek to sensitize therapists to the two interlacing tracks of communication that unfold in treatment: those of verbal exchange and of enactive messages. And they help guide therapist attention among interpenetrating domains of the patient’s subjectivity, the therapist’s subjectivity, and the intersubjective realm that emerges from their collaborative experience. Fusing the humanist tradition of therapeutic inquiry with knowledge gained from recent infancy and child research, Lichtenberg develops guidelines suitable to exploratory therapy with patients who communicate not only verbally but also through diverse affect states and altered cognitions. Consistently illuminating on the parallels and disjunctions between caregiver–child and therapist–patient relationships, Lichtenberg is clear about the adult-to-adult dimension of exploratory work in which “provision” is necessarily subordinate to “inquiry.” Craft and Spirit is aimed equally at prospective patients, therapists, and analysts, all of whom will be edified by this masterful demonstration of the ways in which a spirit of inquiry imbues the craft of psychotherapy, in Lichtenberg’s words, “with its liveliness of sustained purpose.”

In a postmodern age we all need a room of our own. A room - or space - where we can explore and reflect on how the rapidly changing world affects us. A room where it is possible to get a feeling of who we are, and wish to be, in the middle of the buzz of our everyday lives. Where it is possible to explore our challenges and possibilities and thus become a more robust human being. Where we can think of our relationships and interactions. Where we can have a break and some relief and where we can summon the energy to act - or not to act - in our lives. Coaching is way of providing the space for such thoughts, reflections, and insights into our possibilities. Most of the different coaching methods do not adhere to a specific psychological theory. However, in this book you will meet a coaching method that is based on a specific theory - psychodynamics.

The latest work from a pioneer in the study of the development of the self. Focusing on the hottest topics in psychotherapy—attachment, developmental neuroscience, trauma, the developing brain—this book provides a window into the ideas of one of the best-known writers on these topics. Following Allan Schore’s very successful books on affect regulation and dysregulation, also published by Norton, this is the third volume of the trilogy. It offers a representative collection of essential expansions and elaborations of regulation theory, all written since 2005. As in the first two volumes of this series, each chapter represents a further development of the theory at a particular point in time, presented in chronological order. Some of the earlier chapters have been re-edited: those more recent contain a good deal of new material that has not been previously published. The first part of the book, Affect Regulation Therapy and Clinical Neuropsychoanalysis, contains chapters on the art of the craft, offering interpersonal neurobiological models of the change mechanism in the treatment of all patients, but especially in patients with a history of early relational trauma. These chapters contain contributions on “modern attachment theory” and its focus on the essential nonverbal, unconscious affective mechanisms that lie beneath the words of the patient and therapist; on clinical neuropsychoanalytic models of working with relational trauma and pathological dissociation: and on the use of affect regulation therapy (ART) in the emotionally stressful, heightened affective moments of clinical enactments. The chapters in the second part of the book on Developmental Affective Neuroscience and Developmental Neuropsychiatry address the science that underlies regulation theory’s clinical models of development and psychopathogenesis. Although most mental health practitioners are actively involved in child, adolescent, and adult psychotherapeutic treatment, a major theme of the latter chapters is that the field now needs to more seriously attend to the problem of early intervention and prevention. Praise for Allan N. Schore: "Allan Schore reveals himself as a polymath, the depth and breadth of whose reading–bringing together neurobiology, developmental neurochemistry, behavioral neurology, evolutionary biology, developmental psychoanalysis, and infant psychiatry–is staggering." –British Journal of Psychiatry "Allan Schore's...work is leading to an integrated evidence-based dynamic theory of human development that will engender a rapproachement between psychiatry and neural sciences."–American Journal of Psychiatry "One cannot over-emphasize the significance of Schore's monumental creative labor...Oliver Sacks' work has made a great deal of difference to neurology, but Schore's is perhaps even more revolutionary and pivotal...His labors are Darwinian in scope and import."–Contemporary Psychoanalysis "Schore's model explicates in exemplary detail the precise mechanisms in which the infant brain might internalize and structuralize the affect-regulating functions of the mother, in circumscribed neural tissues, at specifiable points in it epigenetic history." –Journal of the American Psychoanalytic "Allan Schore has become a heroic figure among many psychotherapists for his massive reviews of neuroscience that center on the patient-therapist relationship." –Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence

First Published in 2012. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Core Competencies of Relational Psychoanalysis provides a concise and clearly presented handbook for those who wish to study, practice, and teach the core competencies of Relational Psychoanalysis, offering primary skills in a straightforward and useable format. Roy E. Barsness offers his own research on technique and grounds these methods with superb contributions from several master clinicians, expanding the seven primary competencies: therapeutic intent, therapeutic stance/attitude; analytic listening/attunement; working within the relational dynamic, the use of patterning and linking; the importance of working through the inevitable enactments and ruptures inherent in the work; and the use of courageous speech through disciplined spontaneity. In addition, this book presents a history of Relational Psychoanalysis, offers a study on the efficacy of Relational Psychoanalysis, proposes a new relational ethic and attends to the the importance of self-care in working within the intensity of such a model. A critique of the model is offered, issues of race and culture and gender and sexuality are addressed, as well as current research on neurobiology and its impact in the development of the model. The reader will find the writings easy to understand and accessible, and immediately applicable within the therapeutic setting. The practical emphasis of this text will also offer non-analytic clinicians a window into the mind of the analyst, while increasing the settings and populations in which this model can be applied and facilitate integration with other therapeutic orientations. Core Competencies of Relational Psychoanalysis is inspired by Barsness’ students; he was motivated to create a primary text that could assist them in understanding the often complex and abstract models of Relational Psychoanalysis. Relevant for graduate students and novice therapists as well as experienced clinicians, supervisors, and professors, this textbook offers a foundational curriculum for the study of Relational Psychoanalysis, presents analytic technique with as clear a frame and purpose as evidenced based models, and serves as a gateway into further study in Relational Psychoanalyses.

In the best therapeutic tradition, Louis Breger describes contemporary theories and research in the field of analytic psychotherapy. Through the framework of his personal experiences as a scholar, researcher, and therapist, he focuses on his relationships with patients over the span of his fifty-year career. He records their reactions, in their own words, to their experience with psychotherapy many years after its conclusion. The author surveyed over thirty former patients to see if their progress, begun in therapy, had continued, expanded, or regressed. They were asked to highlight what they remembered as being most helpful, therapeutic, or curative in their treatment. The book is a unique long-term follow-up demonstrating the effectiveness of modern analytic psychotherapy. Breger primarily deals with the connections between therapist and patient. This is a professional memoir of the life of the psychotherapist dealing with trials as a young practitioner, lessons learned, and personal reflections on the choices, including mistakes, made along the way. Young therapists, and those who are in or considering psychotherapy, will find it helpful to have access to this self-reflective approach. Extracts from the patients are extensive and informative, giving the reader the opportunity to see therapy from their perspectives. The book also centers on the development of the therapist over his career span. Breger acknowledges that his understanding of patient care has improved over time in the eyes of his patients. In a larger sense, the book contains lessons for all psychotherapists. This is an important, unique, and innovative work. *Click here for an interview with the author. *Click here for an interview with the author on KQED's Forum with Michael Krasny

Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Basic Text takes a hands-on approach, focusing on the fundamental principles and basic features of the psychodynamic modality for the benefit of training directors and trainees in a variety of mental health fields. This new, meticulously updated edition offers the latest research on the foundations, techniques, and efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy, while still providing the basic information on assessment, indications, formulations, therapist interventions, goals of therapy, and mechanisms of therapeutic action that all mental health professionals require in order to provide excellent care. The author, one of the foremost authorities on psychotherapy, recognizes the common dilemmas experienced by beginning therapists and students, and he has designed the book so that the case examples -- and principles illustrated by those examples -- are directly applicable to learning and practice. Noteworthy and unique to this volume are the expanded videos, which allows students to see clinical concepts in action through the use of carefully constructed clinical vignettes. Each chapter has been thoroughly revised, and the new edition boasts a substantial amount of new material and enhanced coverage. Literature on the empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of psychodynamic therapy, increasingly the focus of rigorous clinical trials, has been added to Chapter 2. The videos, originally provided as a companion DVD and now available online, have been expanded with two new case study vignettes and now include two vignettes of the same patient during and at the termination of therapy. This satisfies the need of trainees in psychotherapy to study senior clinicians at work and to see how the concepts and data in the field are applied to individual treatments. The recent ubiquity of texting, e-mailing, social media, and other cyberspace communications in the practice of psychotherapy is covered in Chapter 3. Practical, hands-on applications, such as case write-ups, oral presentations at case conferences, written examinations, oral examinations, videotaped recordings and direct observations, audiotape recordings, and supervision are covered in depth to help build solid skills and broad knowledge. As useful to educators as it is to students, Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy explains the theoretical foundations and elucidates the reasoning behind the psychotherapist's actions in a wide variety of clinical situations, challenging the reader to build empathy and competency.