The Therapist's Use of Self

by John Rowan, Michael Jacobs

This book is part of the series Core Concepts in Therapy, which takes important concepts in psychotherapy and counselling (which we call collectively therapy), and asks how they are used in different orientations. For this purpose each volume is written by two authors from contrasting approaches. The present volume deals with what is perhaps the central question in therapy - who is the therapist? And how does that actually come across and manifest itself in the therapeutic relationship? A good deal of the thinking about this in psychoanalysis has come under the heading of countertransference. Much of the thinking in the humanistic approaches has come under such headings as empathy, genuineness, nonpossessive warmth, presence, personhood. These two streams of thinking about the therapist's own self provide much material for the bulk of the book - but other aspects of the therapist also enter the picture, including the way a therapist is trained, and uses supervision, in order to make fuller use of her or his own reactions, responses and experience in working with any one client.

The book is aimed primarily at counsellors and psychotherapists, or trainees in these disciplines. It has been written in a way that is accessible to students at all levels, but it is also of particular value to existing practitioners with an interest in the problems of integration.

"Most therapists, regardless of theoretical approach, intuitively recognize that their sense of self intimately influences their work. Using this elemental truth as a launching pad, Rowan and Jacobs articulate the different avenues through which the self informs therapy, and how each can be used to improve therapeutic effectiveness. Along the way the authors provide a masterful exposition of transference, countertransference, and projective identification, throwing much needed light on topics that have long been mired in controversy and confusion.The book is a priceless resource for experienced therapists and those just beginning the journey."
- Professor Sheldon Cashadan, author of Object Relations Therapy and The Witch Must The Hidden Meaning of Fairy Tales

"Outstandingly in the current literature, this book meets the conditions for integrative psychotherapy to fulfil its undoubted potential as the therapy pathway of the future. Much has to change in our field. First, people have to become better informed and more respectful of other traditions than their own, engaging with all kinds of taboo topics. Next, vigorous but contained dispute has to take place without having a bland synthesis as its goal. Finally, the current situation in which 'integration' runs in one direction only - humanistic and transpersonal therapists learning from psychoanalysis - has to be altered. Rowan and Jacobs, each a master in his own field, have done a wonderful collaborative job. The book's focus on what different ways of being a therapist really mean in practice guarantees its relevance for therapists of all schools (or none) and at every level."
- Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology, University of Essex and Visiting Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies, Goldsmith's College, University of London

"There is no question in psychotherapy more important than the degree to which the practitioner should be natural and spontaneous. Would it be sensible to leave one's ordinary, everyday personality behind when entering the consulting room and adopt a stance based on learned techniques? This is the question addressed by Rowan & Jacobs in The Therapist's Use of Self, approaching it from various angles and discussing the relevant ideas of different schools of thought. The authors are very well-infomred and write with admirable clarity, directness and wisdom and have made an impressive contribution to a problem to which there is no easy solution".
- Dr. Peter Lomas, author of Doing Good? Psychotherapy Out of Its Depth.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2002

Reviews

[Dovilė Stonė · Rating 4 out of 5]

it is our own neurosis that helps us understand the client better

"Fairbarn [...] once said to Guntrip: 'You can go on analysing for ever and get no-where. It's the personal relation that is therapeutic. Science has no values except scientific values, the schizoid values of the investigator who stands outside of life and watches. It is purely instrumental, useful for a time but then you have to get back to living' (Guntrip 1996)."

Labai įdomus pats knygos užmanymas - du skirtingų psichoterapijos mokyklų atstovai ieško jų (ir ne tik jų) kryptis vienijančių taškų ir vietų, kuriose jos iš esmės skiriasi.

John Rowan turbūt reikėtų laikyti humanistinės ir integratyviosios psichologijos atstovu, o Michael Jacobs - psichodinamistu. Bent man pastarosios krypties knygoje jautėsi gerokai daugiau nei humanizmo - kas maloniai nustebina. Iš psichodinamistų stereotipiškai nesitiki terapeuto asmenybės įdarbinimo, autentiško buvimo, bet atsitraukus nuo stereotipų išryškėja visiškai kitoks vaizdas - ten pilna vietos spontaniškumui ir autentiškumui.

Vertinant bendrai, knyga neneria labai giliai - ko ir norėt iš ~150 psl. teksto, bet struktūruotai ir pakankamai vaizdingai nagrinėja konsultanto asmenybės vaidmenį terapijoje: kaip ji veikia procesą, kaip pasireiškia kontrperkėlimas, projekcinė identifikacija, kokio pobūdžio santykis gali megztis tarp terapeuto ir kliento, ką reiškia rodyti save kaip 'sužeistą gydytoją', kiek savęs atskleisti ir t. t. ir pan.

"Guggenbühl-Craig (1971), a Jungian psychiatrist, explores the image of the wounded healer, showing how easy it is to split the therapist and patient into healthy therapist and ill patient, masking the true situation that the therapist has wounds and that the patient has the capacity to heal himself or herself. [...] Samuels (1985), in reviewing Jungian literature, summarizes the idea of an inner healer, saying that a fundamental process in the therapist may be described 'as activation of the inner healer of the patient which performs a healing function for him'. At the start of therapy, there is a projection on to the therapist of the inner healer of he patient, which is gradually put back into the patient. The wounds in the therapist 'facilitate empathy with the patient, bet the danger is identification'.

Man įdomiausia buvo skaityti paskutinį skyrių - autorių dialogą/apibendrinimą. (Bet nesiūlau šokti tiesiai prie jo - tam, kad jį būtų galima patogiai sekti, reikėtų perskaityti viską, kas rašyta prieš tai. :D) Plius, atradau įdomių reference'ų, į kuriuos toliau gilinuosi savarankiškai. Tad knyga, manau, visai gerai atliko savo funkciją.

"Therapists are like Winnicott's idea of the adaptive mother, reading the signs in her child, and meeting him or her where he or she is; while at the same time recognizing the points at which changes in relating and being are taking place, and allowing these to happen, before meeting the child again in the new position. So the adaptive mother does no lead, nor does simply mirror, but interacts, making it difficult to know sometimes whether mother (or, indeed, father) is responding to the child, or the child to the parent."

"What 'authentic' may appear to mean (at least in the discourse of therapy) is that style of being a therapist which involves openness to the 'real' self, which, in turn, probably means self-disclosure and even being more active. But 'authentic' can also mean 'true to one self' and, if we recognize, as we surely must, that psychoanalysts are trying to be as true to themselves as much as any other therapist, is there any reason why the relatively silent analyst should be any the less authentic than the more expressive person-centered therapist - just to take stereotypical extremes? [...] There is a match between the therapeutic style I have chosen to be trained in and my own personality."

"So, to remain true to myself, my way of being as a therapist changed as I changed, just as much as being a therapist changed me."

"It may therefore sometimes (even often) be that in the questioning of what we have learned, we have to start unlearning; and it may also be that in questioning what we have learned, that we learn that we have not yet learned enough of what was already obviously there, but which we were not yet ready to recognize."

P. S. Atimu žvaigždę už tai, kad prie rimtų terapijos mokyklų keliose vietose kažkodėl minimas neurolingvistinis programavimas... Why. (Kodėl man tai kliūva, žr.: Witkowski, T. (2010). Thirty-Five Years of Research on Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 41(2), 58–66.)