The Art of the Obvious: Developing Insight for Psychotherapy and Everyday Life

by Bruno Bettelheim

The Art of the Obvious is both a compelling teaching tool and a riveting insider's view for laymen of how psychotherapists learn their craft. The book grew out of a weekly seminar for beginning psychotherapists that was started in 1977 by Bruno Bettelheim, the renowned psychologist, and Alvin Rosenfeld, then director of child psychiatry training at Stanford University. Over the next six years, established practitioners also were drawn to the seminars to discuss difficult cases. From the raw materials of more than one hundred seminar transcripts, extensively reworked and refined, the authors fashioned five representative sessions in which they and the other participants address a variety of issues that therapists typically face - among them building a patient's trust during the first encounter; finding empathy for a violent, destructive child; avoiding preconceptions that might interfere with treatment; and assessing how psychotherapy can alleviate depression in an elderly person.
Through the illuminating discussions of each case history and its particular perplexities, the authors also contend with broader issues. As Bettelheim's final book, The Art of the Obvious gives us many of his last reflections on such subjects as his lifelong argument with the behavioral approach, his sense that research and therapy sometimes have competing agendas, and his realistic consideration of the limits of psychotherapy even in the best hands.
This book offers a moving last glimpse of a wise and humanistic teacher and an accessible, illuminating, and insightful exploration of psychotherapy, that alchemy of intuition and technique that Bruno Bettelheim called "the art of the obvious."

Genres: Psychology

270 pages, Paperback

Published January 4, 1992

About the author

Bruno Bettelheim (1903-1990) was an Austrian-born American child psychologist and writer. He gained an international reputation for his views on autism and for his claimed success in treating emotionally disturbed children.

Reviews

[Karina Sánchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro fue un bonito regalo de uno de los amores de mi vida en el año 2005 y siempre agradeceré el encuentro con estás páginas que me esclarecieron el camino en mi práctica clínica como Psicóloga. Uno de esos infaltables en el aprendizaje de la práctica de la psicoterapia.

[Martha Zavala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro se iba a llamar En los zapatos del otro, y finalmente se llama El arte de lo obvio ,a que se refiere?
En este texto se trabaja la importancia del primer encuentro, son una serie de supervisiones en las que Bettelheim y Rosenfeld opinan sobre el trabajo clínico que presentan los asistentes
Lo obvio son los detalles, la realidad está en los detalles , como recordar que estás ante una persona, que esa persona tuvo razón o sus razones en haber actuado como lo hizo y de lo que se trata es de entender y no suprimir el síntoma
Que las palabras con las que se nombra el malestar de un niño predisponen y que lo que dicen otros sobre un niño puede afectar la escucha y la mirada
Obvio?
Pues si
Pero hay que recordarlo siempre
De los pocos textos que presentan supervisiones y que además develan el trabajo clínico y los argumentos de Bruno Bettelheim

[Renetta Neal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though I work in a different way, I am person-centred and this book is based on Psychoanalysis, I have found many of the thoughts very illuminating and I recommend it to all therapists and others who care for others.

[Michael D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timeless wisdom, still relevant.

[Marjorie Scheer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still reading. Love Bettelheim.