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Therapy Book Reccomendations

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falling_wave

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I started this post because I have a book I just cannot put down that I wanted to share but I thought I would leave it open for other suggestions as well.

If you know a book written about therapy or by a licensed therapist that you reccomend please list it below.

The book I wanted to share is Psychodynamic Tecniques (working with emotion in the psychodynamic relationship) by Karen Meroda. If you have ever wanted to understand how therapy works, why you get certain feelings in therapy, and what are signs of improvement this is it. It's written for therapists but very easy and intriguing to read. I read lots of therapy books and this is number one by far.
 
One of my favorites is "The Trauma of Everyday Life" by Mark Epstein. Although VERY Buddhist, I found the principles espoused in the book extremely enlightening for dealing with developmental trauma. It helped me to understand exactly what my mother had done to me, and what it was I was really looking for not just from my therapist, but from people in general. I highly recommend this book.
 
I just got "A Coloring Book of Healing Images for Adult Survivors of Child Abuse" by Ellen Lacter, Ph.D. from my therapist. Very compassionate, deeply understanding introductions to each chapter, followed by Ideas for Creative Expression (coping strategy section) then the images to color for that specific chapter. Printed on thick paper.
Chapters on 'Safety', 'Joy and Play', 'Reclaiming My Feelings', 'Separating from My Abusers and Their Abuse', etc. Very validating and supportive writing, choose the pictures to color that speak to you, leave the ones that don't.
One quote: "We believe that within each child abuse survivor are resources of intelligence, creativity, sensitivity, and wisdom which not only survived the abuse, but also likely developed in extraordinary ways because of the abuse."

I've gotten a lot out of this book.
 
@falling_wave, I'm a huge reader and currently out of books right now. I'll definitely check it out. My two favorites. "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel Van der Kolk. "Healing Developmental Trauma" by Laurence Heller. (Haha, my book choices speak quite a bit to CPTSD).
 
I'm reading right now and there is so much on the relationship in therapy bringing out emotions from past traumas even from very young ages and working at healing emotion rather than describing trauma details over and over. When I think of my therapy and what has been beneficial I see that the stimulation of deep rooted emotions within the relationship or present day and dealing with them have helped overcome some traumas. It also talks about regression attachment to the therapist as majorly positive and that this is when the work begins because the client is open to experiencing emotion in the relationship. I see so much of my experience here and I'm encouraged because it makes sense. I'm going to look for some research on this idea.
 
My favorite text is "The Body Keep the Score" by Bessell Van der Kolk. I've just started L"A a beginners Guide to Shamic Journey" it looks at trauma in a very spiritual way. I hope to find a way to reclaim my soul that left my body to protect me from feeling the pain of abuse.
 
Not really a "therapy" book, but had a deeply significant impact for me that affected my whole outlook on recovery...Cry of the Soul by Dan Allender. He has another one specifically for CSA survivors, The Wounded Heart, but that one is a very difficult (as in, painful) read, and yet very healing. When I go back to read it...I have to skip the first half of the book.
 
If you have ever wanted to understand how therapy works, why you get certain feelings in therapy, and what are signs of improvement this is it.

Just a slight correction ;)... There are several different schools of clinical psychology. Psychodynamic is 1 of about 10 commonly practiced schools, and just 1 more than 25 of schools of thought out there.

If Ms. Meroda is explaining Psychodynamic Technique... It will probably look very different (and have different explanations of what is happening why) in a therapeutic setting if your therapist is a Developmental Psychologist, or Cognitive Psychologist, or Cognitive-Behavioral Psychologist, Humanist, Gestalt, Family-Systems, Neuropsychologist, etc.

Psych is a really soft science... In hard sciences there are absolutes; what can be proven time and again, by anyone, anytime. In psych, we don't know enough, yet pure & simple. We have trends, but nothing works for everyone, every time.
 
If Ms. Meroda is explaining Psychodynamic Technique...

You are right but if you read this book there is an element of human relationship and I honestly don't think anyone can escape much of what this book discusses in a therapy relationship no matter what kind. That's actually why I like psychodynamic so much. It deals with the relationship and facilitates change based on that. It's right there in front of you inevitable yet you can use it to facilitate change if you want to. I totally get what you are saying though and other approaches may not outwardly identify these things.
 
other approaches may not outwardly identify these things.
LOL. Little further than that... Many other approaches outright disagree with many of the conclusions of the psychodynamic approach assumes or states about relationships, and also the assumptions those conclusions drive .

Just as a few examples...

- Transference is something that Psychodynamic Therapists work towards. They want that blurring of boundaries for ABC reasons, under the base belief that it's healthy. That's something most other schools of thought work against (if it happens at all, and it doesn't in all much less most therapeutic relationships), for XYZ reasons, under the base belief that it's not healthy.

- The belief that behavior is nearly always, if not always, driven by unconscious motives is pretty much only found in Psychodynamic Theory. It's also directly attacked by Cognitive Theory (and Buddhism), which believes that people's motivations are predominantly conscious, not unconscious.

- Ditto psychosexual development in early childhood, is purely Psychodynamic. No other approach I know of sexualizes children.

- Eros & Thanatos is another. While sex & violence are certainly motivations for some people, some of the time, no other approach assumes those are the only two motivations that drive people. In fact, Humanists get about rabid with all the predeterminism in Psychodynamic theory, as their foundation is based on personal Agency.

- Id, Ego, & SuperEgo, another pure Psychodynamic theory thing, especially that there is constant conflict between the 2 unconscious minds.

________________

<grin> Psych is fun. ;) I'll stop there, though. But there are so many contradictions in schools of thought that the entire first & second quarters of psych (101 & 201, essentially) are overviews of what each school believes & their history. Then, your next 25 classes? Each and every single time anything is mentioned? One has to memorize what each school of thought believes on the subject. There's a lot of cross-over so it's not super hard, as schools tend to group together, but it is a bit like watching an 1800's dance...where partners usually stay the same, but sometimes switch around, and men & women are usually paired, but sometimes the line moves and it's women together & men together.

Or maybe a food metaphor would be better... Meat & 3 Veg, vs Meat &Potatoes, vs Kosher, vs Halal, vs Vegetarian, vs Vegan, etc. Each diet makes different assumptions about what people eat, why they should eat it, and what the results are. There is some crossover in both belief & ingredients... But each is quite distinct, and some are directly opposed while others are allied loosely. (Meat vs Vegan, or Vegan + Hindu Veg).

By the time you're done with your bachelors, most psych students know exactly which school they want to go on and specialize in during their masters program, because they know which schools of thought they gel with, and which schools they find *schtupid* and make them bang their head on their desk... From having to memorize all the different opposing views... For. Everything. :p
 
@FridayJones Wow sounds like you have a background in it. I'm in the field too. I find that the most common misconception around these things is that psychoanalytic and psychodynamic are the same thing. I definitely see flaws in psychoanalytic mostly just because it's not practical but psychodynamic I'm a 100% believer.
 
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