Del Loewenthal's career has been wide-ranging, spanning existentialism, psychoanalysis, critical psychotherapy, humanism, postmodernism, phototherapy, cognitive behaviour therapy and childhood studies. This collection combines new and recent works with earlier writings, drawing together his outstanding research and contribution to existential theory, practice and research. Containing chapters and papers chosen by Loewenthal himself, the book is divided into the following sections: • Existentialism after postmodernism and the psychological therapies • Practice, ideologies and politics: Now you see it, now you don’t! • Practice, practice issues and the nature of psychotherapeutic knowledge • Practice and theory: Implications not applications • Thoughtful practice and research • Conclusion: Hopefully unending, continually changing and astonishing After an introduction to the overall book, each section is accompanied by the author's exploration of his further thoughts on the pieces, his own subsequent learning and his comments on developments in the field since the time of writing. Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling after Postmodernism will be inspiring reading for psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, counsellors, other mental health professionals in general, and existential therapists in particular.

Re-Visioning Existential Therapy is a collection of essays from leading practitioners and theorists around the globe which questions some of the key tenets of traditional existential therapy. The book enlightens, stimulates, and provokes the reader out of complacency. It expands the breadth and scope of the approach, discusses recent developments in psychotherapy and philosophy, and aligns existential therapy to a progressive, radical, and counter-traditional ethos. Through clinical studies, personal reflections, discussions on aspects of theory, and exciting links to art, literature, and contemporary culture, these very diverse and wide-ranging contributions take existential therapy into the fertile wilderness of shared experience. Through renewed links to seminal writers, it captures the subversive spirit, the deep compassion, the unflinching gaze and playfulness that is at the heart of the approach. The book will share knowledge and enthusiasm for the practice of existential therapy in order to encourage therapists and trainees to partake of the joys and challenges of existential practice.

This volume is a primer which takes the reader through the ideas of the most important post-modern thinkers, giving a clear summary of the essential points of their ideas and how they relate to current and future psychotherapy theory and practice.

This book is an introduction to critical existential-analytic psychotherapy. It has been written as a response to what is considered to be a crisis point in what is currently taken as psychotherapeutic knowledge. A focus point is the relentless move in psychotherapy and psychotherapy trainings towards evidence-based practice. It is suggested that such developments can be usefully challenged if we are to consider: Can starting with theory be a form of violence? Should a primacy be given to practice? Does reliance on empirical research mean we start from the wrong place? From a critical existential-analytic psychotherapeutic perspective, the answer to all three of these questions is ‘yes’. This perspective, therefore, is fundamentally different from what psychological therapists are increasingly purporting to do, and further challenges other current notions from diagnosis and treatment to dominant discourses in psychology. The aim of this book is to consider some ways in which the psychological therapies might be able to move away from the crisis mainly caused by what is currently wrongly being understood in terms of ‘evidence-based practice’ as the nature of psychotherapeutic knowledge. Instead, it is proposed that primacy be given to: practice, considering theories having implications rather than applications, and privileging thoughtfulness with notions of research being seen more as cultural practices. This book is based on a special issue of the European Journal of Psychotherapy& Counselling.

How do cultural changes such as the increasing lustful possibilities of our liquid modernity affect ‘romantic’ values as psychotherapists and counsellors - and, in turn, affect how they work through their clients’ relationships? Do they embody values from a previous era that are inappropriate for the era we are in now, which some term ‘post-romantic’? For example, do they really privilege monogamous relationships? There again, do those psychotherapists who advocate polygamy really want others to legitimize their own desire to have affairs? How wary should one be of accepting such prevailing theories as Freud’s nuclear family romance and his ‘ordinary unhappiness’? Is anyone value-free regarding romanticism/post-romanticism and should they be? Is ‘to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part’ still an ideal worth working towards or more an ideological imprisonment? This book seeks to explore recent research on how notions of romanticism and post-romanticism affect therapeutic practices. Love, Sex and Psychotherapy in a Post-Romantic Era is a significant new contribution to psychotherapy, and will be a great resource for prospective and current clients, trainee and professional therapists, academics, researchers, and advanced students of Psychology, Psychotherapy, Philosophy and Human Behaviour. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling.

The psychotherapy and counselling profession has recently experienced far-reaching changes because of the development of evidence-based medicine and managed care systems. The Future of Psychological Therapy brings together leading counsellors, psychotherapists, psychological therapists and managers to address how these changes are beginning to affect all aspects of the psychotherapy and counselling profession. It evaluates the impact of these developments, shows how they affect practitioner’s capacity to care, anticipates future developments and offers a coherent and viable approach to research and practice. The book draws on psychotherapeutic theory to develop insight into managed care and engages in qualitative microphenonena research into the complexities of clinical practice drawing on cutting edge developments. It aims to establish a balanced counselling and psychotherapy profession by: opening up a debate about these far-reaching developments which threaten the profession, challenging the rhetoric of accountability, audit, transparency and measurement of care, exposing the danger of sleeping through these momentous changes in the counselling and psychotherapy profession. The Future of Psychological Therapy is a timely and important book, examining the psychotherapy profession's approach to managed care and evidence-based research, and discussing whether a balanced, coherent and viable counselling and psychotherapy research and practice culture can be established. It will be of interest to practitioners, academics and policy makers in the field, non-clinical professionals and anyone who is interested in psychological therapy and addressing the worldwide deterioration in psychological health.