How does the therapist begin psychotherapy? How, that is, does she conceptualize the needs of the patient while simultaneously enlisting him or her as an active partner in formulating an individualized working plan? In Beginnings: The Art and Science of Planning Psychotherapy, Mary Jo Peebles-Kleiger tackles these and other questions in an authoritative manner that draws on the cumulative experience of the outpatient department of the Menninger Psychiatric Clinic.
Key Features
- Elegant synoptic discussions of major categories of psychological dysfunction.
- Different treatment strategies appropriate to various conditions.
- Illustrations of potential treatment obstacles and trial interventions from the start.
- Integrative approach combining psychodynamic understanding with empirical research.
- Serves as both a primer and a sourcebook for clinicians.
Additional Information
Peebles-Kleiger's discussions are carefully calibrated, with actual examples, to the limits and opportunities of the first sessions. Of particular value is her unusual capacity to articulate patients' various difficulties in forming and maintaining an alliance, and then to show how such difficulties feed back into the clinician's interventions in the first few sessions. Skilled in various psychodynamic and behavioral approaches, from psychoanalysis to hypnotherapy, she consistently advances an integrative approach that cuts across specific modalities and combines sophisticated psychodynamic understanding with the fruits of empirical research. Clinicians will find it indispensable in planning humanely responsive treatment in an increasingly complex therapeutic world.
