Overcoming Resistance in Cognitive Therapy [Hardcover]

Despite the efforts of therapists and patients, many patients in cognitive-behavioral therapy--or any therapy--do not improve. This unique book is designed to help the clinician better understand and work with patients who seem unable or unwilling to make needed changes. Integrating ideas from a range of psychotherapeutic approaches, the book presents a multidimensional model of resistance. It enumerates the specific impediments to change that may arise in the cognitive therapy context and brings each one to life with realistic clinical illustrations. Clinicians learn practical strategies and interventions to deal with a number of types of resistance, from reluctance to comply with basic cognitive procedures to risk-aversion and self-handicapping. Also addressed are countertransference issues, including workable ways that clinicians can modify their own responses to patients to overcome impasses in treatment.

This book fills a major gap in the cognitive therapy literature, one that may often account for failure to attain therapeutic goals. The author, while committed to a cognitive model, shows a willingness to mine other therapeutic traditions for ideas that cognitive therapists can use. He has developed a well-thought-through typology of types of resistance, and provides a richness of clinical example and precise formulations of actions the therapist can take to help the patient overcome each type. This book will be an excellent text in courses in all the therapeutic disciplines. It will be especially useful for students in such professions as social work, who will encounter many clients who are induced by environmental and socialization influences to erect barriers to change. --Charles Garvin, PhD, School of Social Work, University of Michigan

For any cognitive-behavioral clinician who has ever asked, 'Why am I having such a difficult time helping my client change?', Leahy has provided an engaging, thought-provoking, integrative text tlc2