This book discusses current theories in linguistics and sociolinguistics as they relate to therapeutic situations, including uses of metaphor, slogans, and proverbs. It shows how people's empathies or feeling of alienation are displayed by the language they choose to describe or discuss events. Dysfunctions as different as depression, drug and alcohol additions, agoraphobia, schizophrenia and bulimia are examined in terms of the language used by clients or patients. It is shown that the way people encode life events influences their self-evaluations, evaluations of others, and their general behaviour, so that therapy becomes a process of learning to retell one's life story. Every chapter contains either actual narratives from clients or therapist/client interviews with thorough linguistic and sociolinguistic analyses of these speech activities. The therapist is shown how to listen and what to listen for in the client's speech, as well as what kinds of questions to ask.

Pragmatic Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy integrates concepts of positive psychology and strengths based therapy into existential therapy. Turning existential therapy on its head, this exciting, all-new title approaches the theory from a positive, rather than the traditional deficit model. Authored by a leading figure in existential therapy, Jerrold Lee Shapiro, the aim is to make existential therapy positive and easily accessible to a wide audience through a pragmatic, stage wise model. Shapiro expands on the work of Viktor Frankl and focuses on delivery to individuals and groups, men and women, and evidence based therapy. The key to his work is to help the client focus on resistance and to use it as a means of achieving therapeutic breakthroughs. Filled with vignettes and rich case examples, the book is comprehensive, accessible, concrete, pragmatic and very human in connection between author and reader. “This is a masterful primer on existential therapy that has been forged from the pen of a highly seasoned theorist, researcher, and practitioner. In Pragmatic Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy we gain the insight and personal experience of one who has lived and breathed the field for over 50 years—alongside some of the greatest practitioners of the craft, most notably Viktor Frankl. This volume is superb for students interested in a broad and substantive overview of the field.” —Kirk Schneider, Columbia University

An argument that communication is a cooperative activity between agents, who together consciously and intentionally construct the meaning of their interaction. In Cognitive Pragmatics, Bruno Bara offers a theory of human communication that is both formalized through logic and empirically validated through experimental data and clinical studies. Bara argues that communication is a cooperative activity in which two or more agents together consciously and intentionally construct the meaning of their interaction. In true communication (which Bara distinguishes from the mere transmission of information), all the actors must share a set of mental states. Bara takes a cognitive perspective, investigating communication not from the viewpoint of an external observer (as is the practice in linguistics and the philosophy of language) but from within the mind of the individual. Bara examines communicative interaction through the notion of behavior and dialogue games, which structure both the generation and the comprehension of the communication act (either language or gesture). He describes both standard communication and nonstandard communication (which includes deception, irony, and "as-if" statements). Failures are analyzed in detail, with possible solutions explained. Bara investigates communicative competence in both evolutionary and developmental terms, tracing its emergence from hominids to Homo sapiens and defining the stages of its development in humans from birth to adulthood. He correlates his theory with the neurosciences, and explains the decay of communication that occurs both with different types of brain injury and with Alzheimer's disease. Throughout, Bara offers supporting data from the literature and his own research. The innovative theoretical framework outlined by Bara will be of interest not only to cognitive scientists and neuroscientists but also to anthropologists, linguists, and developmental psychologists.

Fishing For Barracuda? Is this a book about therapy? Most certainly!

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This volume is part of the series ‘Pragmatics, Philosophy and Psychology’, edited for Springer by Alessandro Capone. It is intended for an audience of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postgraduate and advanced researchers. This volume focuses on societal pragmatics. One of the main concerns of societal pragmatics is the world of language users. We are interested in the investigation of linguistic practices in the context of societal practices (‘praxis’, to use a term used in the Wittgensteinian and other traditions). It is clear that the world of users, including their practices, their culture, and their social aims has to be taken into account and seriously investigated when we deal with the pragmatics of language. It is not enough to discuss principles of language use solely in the guise of abstract theoretical tools. Consequently, the present volume focuses explicitly on the interplay of abstract, theoretical principles and the necessities imposed by societal contexts often requiring a more flexible use of such theoretical tools. The volume includes articles on pragmemes, politeness and anti-politeness, dialogue, joint utterances, discourse markers, pragmatics and the law, institutional discourse, critical discourse analysis, pragmatics and culture, cultural scripts, argumentation theory, connectives and argumentation, language games and psychotherapy, slurs, the analysis of funerary rites, as well as an authoritative chapter by Jacob L. Mey on societal pragmatics.