| Optimal Responsiveness: How Therapists Heal Their Patients Contributor(s): Bacal, Howard A. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0765701146 ISBN-13: 9780765701145 Publisher: Jason Aronson OUR PRICE: $140.58 Product Type: Hardcover Published: April 1998 Annotation: A new generation of dynamic therapists is taking a fresh look at what actually heals the patient. In contrast to the classical vision, whose essential feature is intervention by interpretation in an ambience of optimal frustration, Bacal's conception of optimal responsiveness legitimizes a whole repertoire of professional behaviors - empathic attunement, confrontation, support, self-disclosure, validation or invalidation. Ferenczi, Alexander, Balint, Winnicott, and more recently Kohut anticipated aspects of the idea, which Bacal and his colleagues - informed by emerging understanding in self psychology and intersubjective relational perspectivesarticulate, elucidate, and apply as a comprehensive indicator of therapeutic efficacy. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Psychology | Psychotherapy - Counseling - Psychology | Clinical Psychology |
| Dewey: 616.891 |
| LCCN: 97024483 |
| Series: X Planes of the Third Reich Series |
| Physical Information: 1.24" H x 6.33" W x 9.29" (1.58 lbs) 392 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: A new generation of dynamic therapists is taking a fresh look at what actually heals the patient. In contrast to the classical vision, whose essential feature is intervention by interpretation in an ambience of optimal frustration, Bacal's conception of optimal responsiveness legitimizes a whole repertoire of professional behaviors-empathic attunement, confrontation, support, self-disclosure, validation or invalidation. Everything the therapist does or does not do, does or does not say, is experienced by the patient as some kind of response. Because the relational dynamic is unique to each therapist-patient dyad, the therapist's responses can be tailored to meet the patient's needs, enhancing specificity. And because optimal responsiveness implies recognition of the therapeutic process as a reciprocal system, it also implies reconstrual of what we know as countertransference. |
