Loving Kindness in Psychotherapy

This book explores the way in which loving kindness, contained within professional boundaries of practice, is essential to the building of trust necessary to the psychotherapy relationship. Arguing that loving kindness has both biological and ethical relevance in assisting recovery from the trauma of emotional injury, Heather Reeves brings forth a renewed philosophical and cultural discourse about its importance in professional work with vulnerable people. The philosophical premise of the book is the concept of alterity, or awareness of the subjective reality of others, developed by Emmanuel Levinas and expressed in psychotherapy theories since the mid-twentieth century. Understandings drawn from attachment theory, affective neuroscience and psychodynamic psychotherapy are applied to case studies (one of them written by a client) from the author's practice and themes from literature and biography, including the long-term impact of the Covid pandemic. Loving Kindness in Psychotherapy will appeal to psychotherapists, counsellors and other mental health professionals as well as a range of other readers, including medical and palliative care professionals, educators, clergy, theologians and philosophers.

Heather Reeves works in private psychotherapy practice in Norwich, UK. Her interest in loving kindness arose from her work with people from diverse backgrounds, facing difficulties in physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual domains.

1. The Nature of Loving Kindness 2. Expressions of Loving Kindness in Psychotherapy 3. False Friends of Loving Kindness: The Symbiotic Merger and Sentimentality 4. Loving Kindness and Moral Injury 5. The Shadow Side of Loving Kindness 6. Loving Kindness and Difficulties of Engagement in Psychotherapy 7. Loving Kindness and the Question of Suffering in Pandemic Times 8. A Philosophical Basis for Loving Kindness in Psychotherapy