The Anatomy of Psychotherapy

Description

Over the past decades, Lawrence Friedman has emerged as one of the most erudite and provocative theoriss in contemporary psychotherapy. The Anatomy of Psychotherapy interweaves Friedman's major contributions to the analytic and psychiatric literature with extensive new material in arriving at an extraordinarily rich and nuanced appreciation of psychotherapy. The Anatomy of Psychotherapy describes how the therapist makes use of theories and styles in order to achieve equilibrium under stress.  This stress, according to Friedman, is related to the "absolute ambiguity" that is essential to psychotherapy. To cope with this ambiguity, the therapist alternates among three different roles, those of reader, historian, and pragmatic operator.  Friedman examines these "disambiguating postures" in detail, paying special attention to their bearing on the therapist's narrative prejudice, the relativity of his knowledge, and the relationship of his work to natural science and hermeneutics. Brilliantly constructed and masterfully written, The Anatomy of Psychotherapy traverses the same basic themes in each of its six sections.  Readers who are interested in theory can hone in on relevant topics or the work of particular theorists.  Readers seeking insight into the demands of daily clinical work, on the other hand, can bypass the systematic studies and immerse themselves in Friedman's engrossing reflections on the experience of psychotherapy.  Best served will be those who ponder Friedman's writings and therapy as complementary meditations issuing from a single, unifying vision, one in which psychotherapy, in both its promise and frustrations, becomes a subtle interplay among theories about psychotherapy, the personal styles of psychotherapists, and the practical exigencies of aiding those in distress. Cover Dedication Title Copyright Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction I Theory and Practice: The Trouble with Psychotherapy 1 Whatever Happened to the Therapist's Discomfort? 2 Discomfort Reflected in Theory: The Therapeutic Alliance 3 Looking to Theory for Help 4 Descriptive Help from Theory: Trends in the Psychoanalytic Theory of Treatment 5 Other Uses of Theory 6 Overview II Practice Observed 7 Leaving Theory Temporarily 8 What Moves the Therapist? 9 Therapy Tasks That Theory Must Explain 10 Therapy Tasks: How the Therapist Makes Sense of the Patient 11 Therapy Tasks: How the Patient Makes Sense of the Therapist III Theory of the Mind: The Tool of Psychotherapy 12 Why Bother with Theory of the Mind? 13 The Historical Context 14 Freud's Foothold 15 Construction of Freud's Paradigmatic Theory 16 Conclusion: The Nature and Function of a Theory of the Mind IV Debate About Theory of the Mind: Revisions 17 Introduction 18 Peterfreund's Information-Processing Theory 19 Phenomenological Theory: Mind as a World of Representations 20 Schafer's Action Language 21 Levenson's Perspectivism 22 Gendlin's Vitalism 23 George Klein's Equilibrium Theory 24 Piaget's General Project 25 Piaget and Psychotherapy 26 Kohut's Mixed Theory 27 The Common Thread: Holism 28 Summary: The Need to Balance Perception and Influence V What is a Psychotherapist? 29 Ambiguity as a Discipline 30 Disambiguating Postures: General Considerations 31 Disambiguating Postures: The Reading Imperative 32 Disambiguating Postures: The Therapist's Historicism 33 Disambiguating Postures: The Therapist as Operator 34 How It Fits Together: Performable Model and Metaphor VI Implications 35 Conclusion: No Resting Place 36 Training 37 The Future References Author Index Subject Index