Product Description

A unique, combined perspective on how therapy is conducted, what works and what doesn't work in treatment, and how to take care of oneself as a clinician.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3044514 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 332 pages

Review
Drs. Bender and Messner decided to correct the lack of a good teaching text for the beginning therapist. ...[Their] book clearly fulfils its goals to teach the basic steps, the nuts and bolts, and to be a guidebook rather than a cookbook. It is wonderfully written, comprehensive, detailed, yet very practical and useful. The wealth and quality of therapist patient dialogues is a great feature....All practicing clinicians could benefit from reviewing issues presented in this volume. I also suggest that this book become a required reading in residency training programs. - Annals of Clinical Psychiatry

This thoughtful and thoroughly engrossing book helps novice psychotherapists understand not only what to say, but also the theoretical concepts that undergird the words....Beginning practitioners and teachers of practice will find it an excellent text. - Joan Berzoff, Smith College School for Social Work

For therapists in training, the book offers helpful strategies (and warns against less effective interventions) for handling nearly every kind of issue that arises between the first contact and termination. More experienced therapists will also benefit from the authors' clinical competence and wisdom, especially with regard to patients that are rarely mentioned in textbooks but who frequently show up at our office those who, for example, arrive late to sessions, fail to pay their bills, or do not respond immediately to interventions. A noteworthy contribution. - Louis Castonguay, Pennsylvania State University

This book is a breakthrough, a true gem. A wise, kind and pragmatic master teacher and his gifted student have collaborated to distill the fundamental lessons along the path in the education of a psychotherapist. Many years in the making, the book makes complex concepts alive, personal and elegantly simple. It is a new and valuable tool not only for mental health clinicians, but for any caregiver (or patient!) who hopes to learn better how to listen, and hear. - John B. Herman, Massachusetts General Hospital

From the Back Cover
This book provides students and novice clinicians with nuts-and-bolts advice about the process of doing therapy, starting with the first contact with a new patient. Filling a typical gap in clinical training, the book focuses on such real-world tasks as setting up appointments and discussing payment, conducting effective assessments while setting patients at ease, and dealing with mundane and serious clinical concerns, including suicidality. Featured are a wealth of sample therapist-patient dialogues that bring each situation to life. Suzanne Bender and Edward Messner - a junior clinician and a seasoned practitioner and supervisor - provide a unique, combined perspective on how therapy is conducted, what works and what doesn't work in treatment, and how to take care of oneself as a clinician. Each chapter opens with a concise summary and concludes with a list of key terms. The book also includes a helpful glossary and suggestions for further reading.

About the Author
Suzanne Bender, MD, is a Staff Psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Edward Messner, MD, is a Senior Psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Customer Reviews

Excellent self-help book for therapists
This book is an excellent piece of work.
It covers all aspects of the psychotherapeutic process and deals with common problems encountered between patient and therapist. Ways of understanding and possible solutions to problems are provided, in adjunction to strategies to avoid from the part of the therapist.
Imaginary dialogues between the patient and therapist are illustrated throughout the whole book, while in depth psychodynamic therapist questioning stimulates helpful thgouhts and ideas to the reader about his/her own work.
Irrespective of the psychotherapeutic school the reader belongs to, this book covers more generalised issues that can be applied to different types of therapy. You will find yourself identifying with many common mistakes therapists are trapped in, during pscyhotherapy with patients, and realise that it is therapeutic in itself to be aware of them, but also that there actual solutions.
The book is excellent in the fact that it balances between a strong sense of emapthy from the therapist's stance, meantime building and maintaining limit-setting with the patient, an essential prerequisite for treatment to work.
Practical, witty, with a touch of humour when needed (for example during dialogues with an angry patient, the therapist silently thinks about her own fear of inadequacy and feels frustrated with the patient, wondering what to do....), commmon thoughts all therapists often drown into and often feel helpless!
An insightful book which I highly recommend, especially for practicing psychotherapists.