Claire Rabin innovatively applies the Winnicottian theory of the ‘good enough mother’ to couple therapy, redirecting attention to the therapeutic relationship and the therapist’s self-awareness regardless of the methods used. Using this lens, even the therapist’s mistakes become an opportunity for repairing both the therapeutic relationship and the partners’ own personal maturity. The intensity and pressure of couple therapy can make each case a test of the therapist’s competence. The need for neutrality constitutes on-going pressure on the therapist and the proliferation of therapeutic methods can cause confusion about which might be most useful in each situation. Applying theory effectively is easier said than done within the context of the powerful emotions unleashed in sessions, which can result in a catastrophic atmosphere. These factors can make it hard for therapists to utilise their own skills and knowledge within sessions of couple therapy. The book explores how therapists and couples can unintentionally further ‘false selves’ without realising how the very tools of change may counter authenticity. Featuring interviews with an international range of couple therapists and case studies from the author’s own experiences, the key aspects of the ‘good enough’ concept are elaborated. Rabin shows how these ideas can strengthen therapists’ sense of security and safety in using their lived experience and intuition. Winnicott and Good Enough Couple Therapy is the ideal book for clinicians seeking an overarching framework for working with couples or families, as well as those concerned with the importance of the client-helper relationship.

Product Description: What role does animal like and infantile communication play in life and in psychoanalysis? How are painful childhood experiences recreated with people who are nothing like the original family? What are the roles of loving and horrible feelings in psychoanalytic cure? In Emotional Communication, Paul Geltner places the pre-linguistic type of communication that is shared with infants and animals at the core of the psychoanalytic relationship...read more

One of therapy's greatest challenges is the moment of transference, when a patient unconsciously transfers emotion or desire to a new and present object—in some cases the therapist. During the course of treatment, a patient's projections and the analyst's struggle to divert them can stress, distort, or contaminate the therapeutic relationship. It may lead to various forms of enactment, in which the therapist unconsciously colludes with the client in interpretation and treatment, or it can lead to projective identification, in which the client imposes negative feelings and behaviors onto the therapist, further interfering with analysis and intervention.Drawing on decades of clinical case experience, Robert Waska leads practitioners through the steps of phantasy and transference mechanisms and their ability to increase, oppose, embrace, or neutralize analytic contact. Operating from a psychoanalytic perspective, he explains how to cope professionally with moments of transference and maintain an objective interpretive stance within the ongoing matrix of projective identification, countertransference, and enactment. Each chapter discusses a wide spectrum of cases and clinical situations, describing in detail the processes that invite a playing out of the patient's phantasies and the work required to reestablish balance. Refreshingly candid, Waska recognizes the imperfections of analysis yet reaffirms its potential for greater psychological integration and stability for the patient. He acknowledges the limits and frequent roadblocks of working with difficult patients, such as those who suffer from psychic retreat, paranoid phantasies, and depressive anxieties, yet he indicates an effective path for resetting the clinical moment and redirecting the course for treatment.

Countertransference and the Therapist’s Inner Experience explores the inner world of the psychotherapist and its influences on the relationship between psychotherapist and patient. This relationship is a major element determining the success of psychotherapy, in addition to determining how and to what extent psychotherapy works with each individual patient. Authors Charles J. Gelso and Jeffrey A. Hayes present the history and current status of countertransference, offer a theoretically integrative conception, and focus on how psychotherapists can manage countertransference in a way that benefits the therapeutic process. The book contains completely up-to-date data from existing research findings, and illuminates the universality of countertransference across all psychotherapies and psychotherapists. Contents include: *the operation of countertransference across three predominant theory clusters in psychotherapy; *leading factors involved in the management of countertransference; and *valuable recommendations for psychotherapy practitioners and researchers. Professionals in clinical and counseling psychology, psychiatry, social work, and counseling will benefit from this volume. The book is also appropriate for graduate students in these fields.

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Product Description: Presents a wide range of countertransference reactions that follow the developmental continuum from inchoate psychic states to higher-level character disorders. The book describes which aspects of the patient's psyche evokes the countertransference and which of the therapist's responds...read more