Lives Transformed: A Revolutionary Method of Dynamic Psychotherapy

by David Malan, Patricia Coughlin Della Selva

Overview

In addition to a review of the literature on psychotherapy process and outcome, this book contains detailed clinical accounts of seven patients treated by an immensely powerful method of dynamic psychotherapy (intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy). This treatment is capable of producing major improvements, and even cure, in a wide range of patients. The authors believe that the scientific study of psychotherapy must include highly subjective judgments, provided the evidence upon which they are based is provided in great detail. In the present volume, verbatim transcripts from therapy sessions and follow-up interviews provide this kind of data, which can be evaluated by all who read them. Relying solely on paper and pencil tests, which evaluate only conscious material, is extremely limited and needs to be fortified by the kind of data provided here.

This volume gives an account of what dynamic psychotherapy can achieve at its best. It combines detailed clinical case studies with the scientific research and also gives an overview of the literature available. It is based on the authors’ extensive experience of researching and using psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781855755116
Publisher:	Karnac Books
Publication date:	12/28/2007
Edition description:	Revised Edition
Pages:	356
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Patricia Coughlin Della Selva maintains a private practice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In addition to treating patients, she writes professionally, and conducts training workshops for mental health professionals around the world.

David Malan is a Former Consultant Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, and a well-known author whose comparative studies of group and individual therapies and whose studies of short-term therapies have changed the shape of British psychodynamic therapies.

Editorial Reviews

This is a book of exceptional depth and practicality on how to work with emotion. It is both clear and full of the richest description of seven cases that one could hope to find. One learns how a therapist actually does therapy, and therefore how to do therapy. I could pay a book no higher compliment. By reading it one learns how to work with affect and somatic experience. One sees in rich and concrete detail how a therapist confronts defences, first against affect and emotional closeness, and then against unacknowledged anger and grief, which lie at the heart of much human experience and distress. The therapist promotes a full, direct experiences of these previously avoided feelings. The observed therapeutic effects provide evidence that the direct experience of emotion is the key to healing in psychotherapy.

Leslie S. Greenberg

This is a book of exceptional depth and practicality on how to work with emotion. It is both clear and full of the richest description of seven cases that one could hope to find. One learns how a therapist actually does therapy, and therefore how to do therapy. I could pay a book no higher compliment. By reading it one learns how to work with affect and somatic experience. One sees in rich and concrete detail how a therapist confronts defences, first against affect and emotional closeness, and then against unacknowledged anger and grief, which lie at the heart of much human experience and distress. The therapist promotes a full, direct experiences of these previously avoided feelings. The observed therapeutic effects provide evidence that the direct experience of emotion is the key to healing in psychotherapy.

From the Publisher