Relational competence—the set of traits that allow people to interact with each other effectively—enjoys a long history of being recorded, studied, and analyzed. Accordingly, Relational Competence Theory (RCT) complements theories that treat individuals’ personality and functioning individually by placing the individual into full family and social context. The ambitious volume Relational Competence Theory: Research and Mental Health Applications opens out the RCT literature with emphasis on its applicability to interventions, and updates the state of research on RCT, examining what is robust and verifiable both in the lab and the clinic. The authors begin with the conceptual and empirical bases for the theory, and sixteen models demonstrate the range of RCT concerns and their clinical relevance, including: - Socialization settings for relational competence. - The ability to control and regulate the self. - Relationship styles. - Intimacy and negotiation. - The use of practice exercises in prevention and treatment of pathology. - Appendices featuring the Relational Answers Questionnaire and other helpful tools. Relational Competence Theory both challenges and confirms much of what we know about the range of human relationships, and is important reading for researchers, scholars, and students in personality and social psychology, psychotherapy, and couple and family counseling.

This volume contains current evidence-based diagnosis and therapeutic interventions for people with mental disorders. Students and professionals alike will find the mental health field addressed as a whole in a coherent and understandable way. Readers are offered a unified presentation of psychological and sociological approaches to diagnosis and treatment.

An important breakthrough in the treatment of one of the most challenging classes of psychological disorders This book introduces psychotherapists to Integrative Relational Psychotherapy (IRP), a dynamic new approach to the diagnosis and treatment of personality disorders that capitalizes on recent major advances in the fields of personology and therapy systems theory. Combining a rigorous biopsychosocial model of personality with a relational framework for patient assessment and treatment planning, IRP is designed to produce rapid and sustained systemic change in patients suffering from virtually all DSM-identified personality disorders. With the help of numerous case studies and vignettes drawn from his own practice, Dr. Jeffrey Magnavita provides a remarkably lucid, fully referenced presentation of the theoretical underpinnings of IRP. He arms you with tested relational assessment tools, psychometrics, and interviewing techniques that can easily be incorporated into individual, couples, and family therapy practices. And he develops clear guidelines for creating customized, highly focused treatment strategies--for individual clients or families--that integrate an array of systemic intervention modalities to be administered sequentially or in combination.

"Spiritual and existential struggles tell a story about the quality of clients' lives, beyond what clinicians can learn from their mental health symptoms alone. This book presents the Relational Spirituality Model (RSM) of psychotherapy, a creative clinical process that engages existential themes to help people make sense of profound suffering or trauma. To promote healing and growth, practitioners using the RSM provide a secure and challenging therapeutic space, while guiding clients as they explore ways of relating to the sacred in their lives. In this model, therapeutic change is seen as an intense yet safe process of movement and tension between dwelling and seeking, stability and disruption. Assessment and intervention strategies focus on developmental systems-attachment, differentiation, and intersubjectivity-to restructure relationships with the self, others, and the sacred. In depth clinical case examples demonstrate how to respect diverse client perspectives on suffering and trauma, and apply the RSM in individual, couple, family, and group psychotherapy. Readers will find new ways of working within the spiritual, existential, religious, and theological concerns that infuse their clients' struggles and triumphs"--

Introduces the principles and applications of cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) is an increasingly popular approach to therapy that is now widely recognised as a genuinely integrative and fundamentally relational model of psychotherapy. This new edition of the definitive text to CAT offers a systematic and comprehensive introduction to its origins, development, and practice. It also provides a fully updated overview of developments in the theory, research, and applications of CAT, including clarification and re-statement of basic concepts, such as reciprocal roles and reciprocal role procedures, as well as extensions into new areas of expertise. Introducing Cognitive Analytic Therapy: Principles and Practice of a Relational Approach to Mental Health, 2nd Edition starts with a brief account of the scope and focus of CAT and how it evolved and explains the main features of its practice. It next offers a brief account of a relatively straightforward therapy to give readers a sense of the unfolding structure and style of a time-limited CAT. Following that are chapters that consider the normal and abnormal development of the Self and that introduce influential concepts from Vygotskian, Bakhtinian and developmental psychology. Subsequent chapters describe selection and assessment; reformulation; the course of therapy; the ‘ideal model’ of therapist activity and its relation to the supervision of therapists; applications of CAT in various patient groups and settings and in treating personality type disorders; use in ‘reflective practice'; a CAT perspective on the ‘difficult’ patient; and systemic and ‘contextual’ approaches. Presents an updated introduction and overview of the principles and practice of cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) Updates the first edition with developments from the last decade, in which CAT theory has deepened and the approach has been applied to new patient groups and extended far beyond its roots Includes detailed, applicable ‘how to’ descriptions of CAT in practice Includes references to CAT published works and suggestions for further reading within each chapter Includes a glossary of terms and several appendices containing the CAT Psychotherapy File; a summary of CAT competences extracted from Roth and Pilling; the Personality Structure Questionnaire; and a description of repertory grid basics and their use in CAT Co-written by the creator of the CAT model, Anthony Ryle, in collaboration with leading CAT practitioner, trainer, and researcher, Ian B. Kerr Introducing Cognitive Analytic Therapy is the definitive book for CAT practitioners and CAT trainees at skills, practitioner, and psychotherapy levels. It should also be of considerable interest and relevance to mental health professionals of all orientations, including clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, mental health nurses, to those working in forensic and various institutional settings, and to a range of other health care and social work professionals.

The personal interface between clinician and patient is a misunderstood subject which can impact all areas of health care. Without adequate training in relationship science clinicians inadvertently contribute to empathic failure, poor medical decision process, difficulty changing health-related behavior, costly variation and derailment of care, extra litigation, and clinician burnout. Relationship Power in Health Care presents new knowledge and skills that empower health care and wellness professionals to become competent facilitators of behavior and lifestyle change, information transfer, and medical decision making in collaboration with their patients. The new approaches are supported by a wide variety of research and clinical evidence, derived from modern psychotherapy, brain biology, and the latest advances in health coaching and nursing science. Putting them to work to improve health care makes good sense both scientifically and ethically. This comprehensive text integrates past health psychology models starting from the 1950s with recent advances made since the 1990s in relationship psychology and interpersonal neurobiology. It also includes videos of brief medical interviews along with analysis of the strategies and tactics used. The tactics outlined and the interview demonstrations, conducted by a highly experienced clinical social worker and nurse Joanne Gaffney, offer a unique opportunity for all clinicians to acquire valuable skills in both clinician self-care and patient care.

Human beings are fundamentally relational—we develop, heal, and grow through relationships. Integrating insights from psychology and theology, Todd W. Hall and M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall present a definitive model of spiritual transformation based on a relational paradigm, showing how transformation works practically in the context of relationships and community.