This groundbreaking book presents a new model for incorporating the human body, and specifically physical touch, into psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, particularly for patients who have experienced trauma. Novak’s model of informed and disciplined touch articulates five categories of touch and three phases of therapeutic body work, all of which can help move the patient and therapist directly into bodily experiences that enable trauma memories to be processed, and then analyzed and transformed. This transformation leads to patients experiencing their bodies in fundamentally new ways, both relationally and intrapsychically. The book also grapples with the risks and ethics of working directly with patients’ bodies, outlining theoretical and clinical elements that help create a safe and sacred therapeutic structure. Novak’s model offers a continuum of touch from everyday physical interactions, such as handshakes or hugs, to more complex and complete ways of working with the body that are safe and meaningful and that create an integrated experience of the patient’s mind and body. Physical Touch in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy is of interest to therapists at all levels of experience in the fields of counseling, social work, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis. Practitioners in other helping professions such as healthcare, massage therapy, and physical therapy, as well as providers of wholistic medicine, will also be able to make use of the comprehensive clinical model and case studies detailed in the book.

Should a therapist ever shake hands with a client, or touch a client's hand or shoulder? There are taboos against erotic touch in psychotherapy, for excellent reasons, but what about nonerotic touch? These latter forms of physical contact are not explicitly taboo and they can be powerful forms of communication. Research and clinical experience indicate that they can contribute to positive therapeutic change when used appropriately. What, then, is appropriate use?

"Well written and thoughtfully structured, this highly accessible, lively text offers the reader a contemporary and comprehensive introduction to psychodynamic practice. Howard provides lucid explanations of core psychodynamic ideas and skills rooted in engaging clinical illustrations. It will be an invaluable companion both during and beyond training" Prof Alessandra Lemma, Trust-wide Head of Psychology and Visiting Professor, Essex University This practical text is the first to systematically address the competencies and techniques identified as central to the delivery of effective psychodynamic practice. It provides a framework for the therapist to develop their skills and apply them to their practice by: - discussing the personal and professional growth which underpins a professional and ethical attitude to the therapist′s work - linking specific competencies to the theory base underpinning them - describing competencies in a systematic way - including a chapter on how to use supervision - using case material to illustrate competencies and dilemmas. Addressing not only how to implement skills, but why they are being implemented, this book is a must-read for all trainees on psychodynamic counselling and psychotherapy courses. It is also useful reading for trained practitioners who want an accessible introduction to psychodynamic skills in practice.

This is a step-by-step guide to the key skills and techniques of the psychodynamic approach used at each stage of the therapeutic process. Updated in a second edition, the book includes a new chapter on neuropsychology and its implications for theory and practice, new content on working in the NHS and other settings, additional case material and updates to all chapters reflecting recent literature, research and understanding.

This book introduces readers to the ethical and goal-oriented functions of touch in professional practice. Touch is both an increasingly visible topic today and a core skill in many professions, especially in health, education and social work. This book combines helpful theoretical discussions and practical information, offering a balanced and culturally-informed introduction to an issue that both students and professionals often find difficult to navigate. Chapters discuss the various functions of touch and its uses, giving readers a deeper understanding of the potential of tactile work practices. The authors offer clear legal and ethical guidance to empower learners. They discuss key issues such as harmful touch and the increasing digitisation of patient work. Activities, case studies and further readings promote learning and help readers reflect on their own relationship to touch. This book will be an invaluable resource for students in undergraduate and graduate courses in healthcare, nursing, education and social work, and to practitioners looking for guidance on this topic.

By viewing psychoanalysis through the lens of embodiment, Brothers and Sletvold suggest a shift away from traditional concept-based theory and offer new ways to understand traumatic experiences, to describe the therapeutic exchange and to enhance the supervisory process. Since traditional psychoanalytic language does not readily lend itself to embodied experience, the authors place particular emphasis on the words I, you, we and world, to describe the flow of human attention. Offering new insights into trauma, this book demonstrates how traumatic experiences and efforts to regain certainty in one’s psychological life involve profound disruptions of this flow. With a new understanding of transference, resistance and interpretation, the authors ultimately show how much can be gained from viewing the analytic exchange as a meeting between foreign bodies. Grounded in detailed case material, this book will change the way therapists from all disciplines understand the therapeutic process and how viewing it in terms of talking bodies enhances their efforts to heal.

On the Daily Work of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy is an operating manual for the challenging, often lonely and confusing work of doing therapy. It locates clinical method in a historical tradition of many contributory workers including Freud, Breuer, Klein, Segal, Ferenczi, Waelder, Katan, Tausk, Sullivan, Lacan, Bion, and Ogden. In this way, the book links clinicians with psychoanalytic thinkers across the foreclosures of scholastic orientation and politics, to arrive at a methodology, based in interpretive reflection, and demonstrably active from the period of psychoanalytic origins as an application of the influence of mind upon mind. The authors provide the reader with a methodology of clinical thinking, of how clinicians orient themselves in clinical registration, moment by moment. It develops a route of fundamental therapeutic action, applicable under all clinical situations, from the single session consultation to intensive, long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy.