The Therapeutic Encounter - Bott, David

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Résumé :
Focusing on the client-therapist relationship at the core of counselling & psychotherapy practice, this book introduces a model effective across all therapeutic approaches. It provides a cross-modality framework for practice by engaging the trainee directly in the drama of the therapeutic encounter....

Biographie:
David Bott is Director of Studies in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Brighton. His initial background was in social theory. An early post with responsibility for providing training for health and social services across London opened an interest in humanistic principles and practice leading to a number of trainings. Subsequently, he undertook full-time clinical study of Family Systemic Therapy at the University of London Institute of Psychiatry working both in the Maudsley Hospital and the Department of Child and Family Psychiatry at King College Hospital. As an academic at the University of Brighton, he has published a number of papers which examine the relationship between therapeutic theories and models from a systemic/social constructionist perspective. In addition to his academic responsibilities, David is a UKCP registered systemic psychotherapist in independent practice.

Pam Howard is responsible for the masters programme in counselling and psychotherapy at the University of Brighton and is a UKCP registered Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. She began her academic career as a psychoanalytic theorist and this led to undertaking a clinical training at the Guild of Psychotherapists. She has lectured on aspects of psychoanalytic theory and practice for a number of years in higher education. As first Chief Executive of the UK Council of Psychotherapy, she spent a decade heavily involved in the professionalization and regulation of psychotherapy and subsequently held the Chair of the Universities Psychotherapy and Counselling Association. At the University of Brighton her publications have centred on aspects of the psychoanalytic therapeutic relationship.

Together with colleagues, they have developed an approach to counselling and psychotherapy training founded upon the principle of respectful co-existence between disparate approaches. Here, cross-modality dialogue is a central feature of the learning.

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Sommaire:
Theorising ?Process?: Contemporary Perspectives
The Refusal to Join In
Dilemma: How Can I Take Part if I Can?t Make a Mistake?
The Battle for Control
Dilemma: How Can I Find Love When I Can?t Show That I?m Vulnerable?
Engaging with the Emotionally Unavailable
Dilemma: How Can I Get Close and Still be Myself?
The Need to be Loved
Dilemma: How Can I Keep Everyone Happy and Still Get My Own Needs Met?
An Inability to Relate
Dilemma: How Can I Get Love and Still Be Self-Sufficient?
Encountering Oppositionality
Dilemma: How Can I Get My Way When I Can?t Say What I Want?
Conclusion: The Therapeutic Encounter: A Safe Emergency

'In 'The Therapeutic Encounter: a cross-modality approach' Bott and Howard have presented an interesting balance between theory and practice. Particularly engaging is their metaphor of the 'therapeutic dance' between therapist and client which leads to the enactment of 'the problem-saturated story' brought by the client. They devote separate chapters to six captivating examples from clinical practice, each with a particularly nuanced commentary fitting the case. An intriguing read, that will be of interest to trainees and practicing therapists alike' - Professor Maria Gilbert, Joint Head of Integrative Department, Metanoia Institute

'Many years ago I came across the concept of 'crossing over' into other ways of seeing, not to adopt those ways of seeing, but in order to get a real perspective on one's own. Other ways of seeing inform our own, and often help us discover lost aspects or not yet discovered aspects of our own. The themes in this book clearly demonstrate how much that applies to psychotherapy and counselling models. See things from the perspective of other modalities, and you may well discover something startling about your own ...' - Michael Jacobs, Visiting professor, Bournemouth and Leeds Universities

'Some books are before their time and some are written too late, but The Therapeutic Encounter is a book 'just in time'. With a firm grasp of the unifying potential of relational process thinking, Bott and Howard deftly cut across the territories of the usual therapeutic modalities, flexibly shifting from theoretical frame to theoretical frame in order to reveal and act upon the stubborn particulars of each therapeutic scenario. The key insight - enabling the avoidance of theoretical chauvinism and easy eclecticism alike - is the organising principle of a series of dilemmas, contradictions and paradoxes which constitute ambivalent hotspots around which the narratives which pattern our lives are constructed. In prose which brings their cases to vivid emotional life, Bott and Howard show how these enduring themes of experience are both the root of recurrent problems and the source of novel solutions. This insight forms the common ground that allows psychoanalysts to communicate with systems theorists and person centred practitioners with narrative therapists. The result is not a training manual, but a timely intervention destined to calmly guide the counselling and psychotherapy community through its own current crisis of transition' - Paul Stenner, Professor of Social Psychology, The Open University