Freud once humorously remarked that "Anyone who wants to make a living from the treatment of nervous patients must clearly be able to do something to help them". It is amazing how frequently this simple precept is ignored and, when a patient does not get well, how often the failure is attributed to lack of proper motivation, diminutive ego strength, latent schizophrenia, and a multitude of assorted resistances. Difficulties that arise during therapy are not due to a deliberate conspiracy of neglect on the part of the therapist. They usually come about because of obstructive situations that develop in work with patients with which the therapist is unprepared to cope. During his psychiatric career the author, who spent time both teaching and supervising, collected and collated questions from students and graduate therapists who had raised concerns about psychotherapy that related to such obstructive situations. Originally published in 1982, this volume contains both those questions and his answers.

Freud once humorously remarked that "Anyone who wants to make a living from the treatment of nervous patients must clearly be able to do something to help them". It is amazing how frequently this simple precept is ignored and, when a patient does not get well, how often the failure is attributed to lack of proper motivation, diminutive ego strength, latent schizophrenia, and a multitude of assorted resistances. Difficulties that arise during therapy are not due to a deliberate conspiracy of neglect on the part of the therapist. They usually come about because of obstructive situations that develop in work with patients with which the therapist is unprepared to cope. During his psychiatric career the author, who spent time both teaching and supervising, collected and collated questions from students and graduate therapists who had raised concerns about psychotherapy that related to such obstructive situations. Originally published in 1982, this volume contains both those questions and his answers.

Freud once humorously remarked that "Anyone who wants to make a living from the treatment of nervous patients must clearly be able to do something to help them". It is amazing how frequently this simple precept is ignored and, when a patient does not get well, how often the failure is attributed to lack of proper motivation, diminutive ego strength, latent schizophrenia, and a multitude of assorted resistances. Difficulties that arise during therapy are not due to a deliberate conspiracy of neglect on the part of the therapist. They usually come about because of obstructive situations that develop in work with patients with which the therapist is unprepared to cope. During his psychiatric career the author, who spent time both teaching and supervising, collected and collated questions from students and graduate therapists who had raised concerns about psychotherapy that related to such obstructive situations. Originally published in 1982, this volume contains both those questions and his answers.

Originally published in 1987, the purpose of this book was to show how therapists grappled with cases which challenged their ideas about the theory and practice of psychotherapy at the time, and how they revised these ideas as a result of encountering these cases. The contributors, leading therapists from Britain and the United States, discuss a range of issues – personal, conceptual and technical – that will be of interest to all those engaged in psychotherapeutic work. As such, the book is aimed at those working in psychotherapy counselling, clinical psychology and psychiatry, and at students of these disciplines. It will also have relevance for those with a scholarly interest in developments in the theory and practice of psychotherapy.

Originally published in 1983, fifteen well-known psychologists and psychotherapists write about their personal interests to give the reader a vivid picture of the complexities of psychotherapy in Britain at the time. They explore aspects of the interaction and intersection of the psychological and psychotherapeutic worlds, paying particular attention to the practical and theoretical controversies involved in this overlap. The first half of the book concerns itself with problems of theory and practice in psychology and psychotherapy, while the second half deals with professional conflicts and political issues impinging upon the practice of psychotherapy by psychologists. Areas of concern and controversy that are scrutinised include the problematic relationship between academic psychology and psychotherapy; doubts and certainties in psychotherapy; the psychology of helping; the relevance of the psychodynamic tradition; inter-professional disputes; women and psychotherapy; and social class issues in psychotherapy.

As a psychotherapist, in whose name do I speak? How can I come to speak in my own name? What does ‘tradition’ mean in psychotherapy? Originally published in 1993, the contributors to this book – all practising psychotherapists and teachers – explore these questions and investigate how theories and practices are passed on from one generation to the next. Their responses range over questions of training and indoctrination, the idea of tradition in the thought of Freud, Jung and Winnicott, and the implications of these questions for the practice of psychotherapy. It will be of special interest to psychotherapists and counsellors, as well as students and teachers of therapy. With its emphasis on how psychotherapy might gain by seeing its connections to other traditions, such as literature, philosophy and the creative arts, the book will also appeal to a wider readership.

The family therapy movement had from its earliest days been marked by a surge of creativity and by the energy of the new ideas it generated. Originally published in 1979, the authors of the original essays collected together in this book felt that the time had come to take stock and to scrutinise more carefully the meaning and effectiveness of this new psychotherapeutic method within the particular conditions prevailing Britain at the time. The book focuses on issues relating to theory, research and practice and, while concentrating on three sub-specialities of family therapy – family group therapy, marital therapy and network therapy – the papers cover a wide variety of topics. In addition to papers by practitioners and teachers of family therapy, two contributions are included from the field of academic psychology. Before this, much of the family therapy literature had been presented in the form of an uncritical eulogy of the method. The special interest of this book lies in its attempt to bring a critical perspective to bear upon family therapy and its application. Moreover, in contrast with much that had been previously written, the authors sought to make a distinctive contribution to the development of family therapy through their effort to integrate, rather than to polarise, what is valuable within a variety of different theoretical and empirical approaches.