Clinical Epiphanies in Marital and Family Therapy

How would you handle these situations? Check your expertise against the approaches presented here!This fascinating collection shows how a practicing therapist handled clients stuck in the therapeutic process. Clinical Epiphanies in Marital and Family Therapy: A Practitioner's Casebook of Therapeutic Insights, Perceptions, and Breakthroughs presents a cross-section of approaches and orientations as they work in practice. The families and couples discussed here have experienced a wide range of difficulties, and the presenting and commenting therapists run the gamut in age, gender, race, and theoretical orientation.The serendipitous turning points presented here are all true case studies, but Clinical Epiphanies in Marital and Family Therapy offers more than the chance to second-guess a single therapist's handling of explosive moments. Each case study is also discussed by two other therapists representing divergent points of view. This point-counterpoint structure allows readers to analyze the effectiveness of different therapeutic approaches and to recognize that in practice, heterogeneous orientations may result in similar strategies.Clinical Epiphanies in Marital and Family Therapy demonstrates the factors that contribute to doing successful therapy, including: - ensuring that clients feel they are being treated with respect - establishing a sound therapeutic relationship - making successful treatment bargains - moving away from your therapeutic agenda when necessary - being persistent in the face of a stubborn refusal to changeClinical Epiphanies in Marital and Family Therapy offers fresh strategies for experienced practitioners, beginning therapists, and educators in the field of mental health.

David A Baptiste

- About the Editor - Contributors - Foreword - Preface - Case 1. Try Death on for Size - A Therapeutic Hail Mary - The Patience of a Saint - Case 2. Little League: The Feel of Dreams - If You Reframe It, They Will Come - Hit the Next Good Pitch - Case 3. You Might Get What You Wish For - Let's Do Another Study - With Creativity We Engage Them - Case 4. Being There - Seduced by Urgency - Winning the Battle, but Losing the War? - Case 5. Be a Man - A Patient Therapist - Be a Good Person - Case 6. Sentenced to Life or United in Death - United in Therapy or United in Life - Sitting Outside the Therapy Room - Case 7. Fishing for Gender Equity - Matching the Bait with the Catch - Romancing the Gender Lens - Case 8. Seeing Is Believing - Finding One's Voice - Show Me One More Time - Case 9. My Children Are Not Liars - My Children's Good Example - Safety Is Trust in Mother - Case 10. A Young Man and a Penis Called Chipmunk - Sticks and Stones and Names Can Hurt You - Somatizing Sexual Secrets - Case 11. I Have No Problem - Born a Problem? - The Problem Is a Problem - Case 12. I'm Not Ready to Die! - Living with Connection - I'm Not Ready to Talk - Case 13. Visiting All Monsters - Trading Monsters for Dreams - Embracing Monsters - Case 14. Therapist or Firefighter? - Farmer, Naturalist, Environmentalist - Firefighters Need Teamwork - Case 15. Jimmy the Flying Reindeer and the Two Mothers - Where Are the Fathers? - Mediating Solomon's Mothers in the Best Interest of the Child - Case 16. It's All About the Dog - Never Too Old to Learn New Tricks - Wagging the Dog - Index - Reference Notes Included