Compassion: The Core Value That Animates Psychotherapy - Hardcover

Lewin, Roger A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1568216785 ISBN 13: 9781568216782

Publisher: Jason Aronson Publishers, 1996

Synopsis

This text is an attempt to stimulate and support therapists' efforts to take care of themselves, to understand and maintain commitment. Such reflection, it argues helps therapists to be active and receptive.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The practice of psychotherapy is not simply a matter of technique, but depends on one's entire way of looking at the world, especially at that which is dark and difficult in human experience. Compassion, the intelligent pursuit of kindness, lies at the very heart of the psychotherapeutic enterprise. Using examples drawn from life inside and outside the consulting room, Roger A. Lewin explores the meanings, encounters, and quandaries that arise with the quest to be compassionate. The author considers compassion as a virtue at once personal and political, which both depends on and helps create a social and cultural climate. He considers compassion as it relates to the capacity to listen, to hurting and being hurt, to dependency, to joy, to grieving, to homelessness, to drug use, to institutional life, to evil, and to the self. He uses the understanding of compassion as a way to link what goes on inside the consulting room with what goes on outside it. To reflect on compassion is to seek a tuning fork for the heart, so that we can keep our passion in that part of our living and loving we call work. This helps therapists to be engaged and receptive. While such reflection may sometimes make us uncomfortable, the comfort that comes from remaining numb is ultimately more unbearable.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jason Aronson Publishers
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1568216785
• ISBN 13: 9781568216782
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 348