Strategies of Psychotherapy (Classic Reprint)

Strategies of Psychotherapy (Classic Reprint) Synopsis

Excerpt from Strategies of Psychotherapy

Therapists may range from indignation to squeamishness in their reao tions to the notion of deliberately manipulating the patient as presented in the section on directive therapy. I would caution those who have not tried the kind of techniques Haley describes, or that I have described in another publication, to either try this kind of intervention or speak to a friend who has weathered such an encounter. When Freud discovered transference, he discovered that the patient and therapist were involved in an interactional game that required skill on the therapist's part if both he and the patient were to benefit by the encounter. If the therapist is genuinely interested in helping the patient, and if he is experienced so that he can bring his skill to bear in at least a partially predictable way, then the style of the game he plays with the patient can vary widely and still be helpful. Therapy becomes manipulative, in the opprobrious sense of this term, only when the therapist is using the patient for various covert financial and/ or power reasons that have little to do with the pa tient's best interests.

It is an honor to have been asked to write the foreword to this book especially since I believe it to be unique. We have all been in need of it for some time.

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