Listening to Patients Relearning the Art of Healing in Psychotherapy [Hardcover]

In this gem of a book, master teacher and psychiatrist Richard G. Druss stresses a flexible and humane approach to psychotherapy. Using clinical anecdotes as a method of teaching, Druss presents some of his own early cases--failures as well as successes-and through these moving vignettes gives us fresh insights into both the therapeutic process and the healing relationship between therapist and patient. As he has to generations of supervisees, Druss describes the value and beauty of learning how to listen to patients. The chapters in this volume follow a logical and chronological sequence--from the initial establishment of rapport with a new patient to the realization of goals at the end of therapy. Along the way, Druss examines such topics as Conflict, Personality, and Culture in Psychotherapy, The Spiritual Life of Patients, and Patients Who Return to Psychotherapy After Termination. This book is written for psychiatry residents, medical students, and practitioners of clinical psychology, social work, nursing, and primary care medicine. This beautifully written volume, totally free of jargon and arcane terminology, would be of equal interest to any educated person who wishes to know more about modern dynamic psychotherapy.

Introduction
1. Creating the Working Alliance
2. The Initial Sessions: Setting the Course
3. Positive Transferences in Psychotherapy
4. Conflict, Personality, and Culture in Psychotherapy
5. Body Image: In the Eye of the Beholder
6. Supervision of Psychotherapy
7. The Spiritual Life of Patients
8. Termination of Psychotherapy: Patient's Goals, Therapist's Goals
9. Patients Who Return to Psychotherapy
Notes
Index

Dr. Richard Druss is one of psychiatry's most humane and eloquent teachers on the value and healing power of the psychotherapies. This accessible and inspiring book describes crucial aspects of the therapy process and the lives of people who are transformed by it. Its wisdom and insighl‰