How Clients Make Therapy Work: The Process of Active Self-healing - Softcover

Bohart, Arthur C.; Tallman, Karen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557985715 ISBN 13: 9781557985712

Publisher: American Psychological Association, 1999

Synopsis

What makes therapy work? Ultimately it is the client. Most people cope, survive and grow with challenges in their everyday lives, with or without the help of a therapist. In this provocative book, the authors debunk the medical model of the psychotherapist as healer who merely applies the proper nostrum to make the client well. Instead, they see the therapist as a coach, collaborator and teacher who frees up the client's innate tendency to heal. The self-healing tendency of the client usually overrides differences in technique or theoretical approach, which is why research continually finds different approaches to therapy to be equally as effective. If the client is the driver of change, how can therapists help? Often therapists can help their clients by simply providing an empathic workspace that allows the client's capacity for generative thinking to thrive. The authors show how different schools of therapy have unique ways of mobilizing clients and share tips for dealing with client resistance, passivity and maladaptive behaviour. This practical and provocative book is a must-read for those who care about the nature of therapeutic change.

About this title

About the Author

Arthur C. Bohart, Ph.D. professor of psychology at California State University Dominguez Hills.

Edition details

• Publisher: American Psychological Association
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1557985715
• ISBN 13: 9781557985712
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 360