Therapeutic Action: A Guide to Psychoanalytic Therapy

Rating:
Summary: Finally, a clear explanation of psychoanalytic psychotherapy
Review: As a practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapist, I want to highly recommend this book to those who feel they want to become even more effective in their therapeutic work. First, this book is clearly written and full of illustrations of more and less effective therapeutic interventions. Second, it is based on current emperical research as well as the vast clinical basis of technique. And perhaps most importantly it introduces a new refinement in understanding what makes for helpful change!

I have found this book has already influenced how I work---adding to my repetoire of interventions, expanding my understanding of certain interactions that I have repeatedly with various patients, and augmenting my confidence in my analytic approach to longer term work with patients hoping to make more characterologic changes.

It is a book I expect I will return to over and over as it contains very pragmatic sections on technique as well as summaries of a number of long term psychotherapies, how they went and what the emperical analysis showed about their outcomes. A very reader friendly book.

Rating:
Summary: Finally, a clear explanation of psychoanalytic psychotherapy
Review: As a practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapist, I want to highly recommend this book to those who feel they want to become even more effective in their therapeutic work. First, this book is clearly written and full of illustrations of more and less effective therapeutic interventions. Second, it is based on current emperical research as well as the vast clinical basis of technique. And perhaps most importantly it introduces a new refinement in understanding what makes for helpful change!

I have found this book has already influenced how I work---adding to my repetoire of interventions, expanding my understanding of certain interactions that I have repeatedly with various patients, and augmenting my confidence in my analytic approach to longer term work with patients hoping to make more characterologic changes.

It is a book I expect I will return to over and over as it contains very pragmatic sections on technique as well as summaries of a number of long term psychotherapies, how they went and what the emperical analysis showed about their outcomes. A very reader friendly book.

Rating:
Summary: The Finest Book Yet Written On Psychoanalytic Therapy
Review: THERAPEUTIC ACTION by Enrico Jones is the one book I most wished I'd had at my side during my graduate training and formative years as a practicing clinician. It would have helped me more than countless hours of reading, reflection, and instruction.

Simply put, THERAPEUTIC ACTION is a masterpiece which far exceeds in scholarship, usefulness, and clarity of insight any work available for psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, clinical social workers, pastoral or marriage, family, and child counselors, graduate students or trainees hoping to enter any of these fields and those who instruct them.

Professor Jones brings superb clarity to such vital subjects as bringing defenses and unconscious mental content into awareness; creating opportunities for self-reflection; intervention as assessment; how to identify patients likely to benefit from psychoanalytic therapy; and the uses and limitations of supportive approaches. He offers an innovative concept of therapeutic action called "interaction structures" which along with compelling verbatim exchanges between therapist and patient shed substantial light on what actually occurs in the session itself.

This superb book is based on the author's painstaking research and longterm clinical experience and is written in a wonderfully clear way. It is a must-read for any clinician interested in perfecting the core competencies and comprehending the key concepts of psychodynamic therapy.

Rating:
Summary: The Finest Book Yet Written On Psychoanalytic Therapy
Review: THERAPEUTIC ACTION by Enrico Jones is the one book I most wished I'd had at my side during my graduate training and formative years as a practicing clinician. It would have helped me more than countless hours of reading, reflection, and instruction.

Simply put, THERAPEUTIC ACTION is a masterpiece which far exceeds in scholarship, usefulness, and clarity of insight any work available for psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, clinical social workers, pastoral or marriage, family, and child counselors, graduate students or trainees hoping to enter any of these fields and those who instruct them.

Professor Jones brings superb clarity to such vital subjects as bringing defenses and unconscious mental content into awareness; creating opportunities for self-reflection; intervention as assessment; how to identify patients likely to benefit from psychoanalytic therapy; and the uses and limitations of supportive approaches. He offers an innovative concept of therapeutic action called "interaction structures" which along with compelling verbatim exchanges between therapist and patient shed substantial light on what actually occurs in the session itself.

This superb book is based on the author's painstaking research and longterm clinical experience and is written in a wonderfully clear way. It is a must-read for any clinician interested in perfecting the core competencies and comprehending the key concepts of psychodynamic therapy.

Rating:
Summary: Must reading for any psychoanalytic psychotherapist
Review: This book should be required reading for anyone who practices psychoanalytic psychotherapy, from students to senior practitioners. Professor Jones writes clearly and eloquently, elucidating the central principles of contemporary psychoanalytic technique. These principles are illustrated throughout with vivid case examples-- not the contrived examples provided by other analytic writers, but verbatim transcripts from actual psychotherapy sessions, obtained from video and audio tapes of real therapists at work. This is the book that FINALLY gives us a window into what really goes on behind the closed doors of the therapy office. Jones provides case examples illustrating not only successful interventions, but also therapeutic mistakes and failures.

The book is based on the author's years of painstaking research into the psychoanalytic process, and reflects the distilled wisdom of thousands of hours of psychoanalytic investigation. It is wide ranging in scope, scholarly, authoritative, but never pedantic. It belongs on every clinician's bookshelf.