Control Therapy

Control Therapy An Integrated Approach to Psychotherapy, Health, and Healing

Nothing is as basic to human dignity and emotional well-being as a sense of control over one's life. Little is as baneful to the integrity of the individual psyche, the quality of interpersonal relationships, or the fabric of a free society as the sense of loss of control—except, perhaps, an irrational and unceasing fear of losing it. From cradle to grave, fundamental control issues shape our personalities, determine how we interact with one another, inform virtually all our important choices, and even provide the themes of many of our most memorable dreams. And, as Deane H. Shapiro and John Astin aver in this groundbreaking book, helping clients achieve a more balanced and realistic sense of control is, ultimately, what every psychotherapeutic endeavor is all about.

Control Therapy: An Integrated Approach to Psychotherapy, Health, and Healing is both a fascinating exploration of the role of control in healthy and disordered cognitive, behavioral, and affective functioning and a practical guide to integrating control-based techniques into virtually any practice. Weaving theory, research, and clinical insight into a coherent framework, the authors identify the personal, interpersonal, and cosmic control issues that run throughout everyone's life. They explore the role of control in nearly every aspect of existence, including interpersonal relationships, family, work, and physical health. They also explain how most major psychological and behavioral disorders can be defined in terms of effective and ineffective control responses. Finally, they demonstrate that control is a major common thread running through all schools of psychotherapeutic thought, including psychoanalytic, cognitive, behavioral, and humanistic/existential.

As one of the primary objectives in writing Control Therapy was to provide therapists of all disciplines with the means of integrating control techniques into their practices, the authors have included various assessment matrixes useful in determining clients' control profile or control story and their levels, styles, and modes of control, and for identifying areas of real or imagined control deficiencies. They also provide practicable guidelines for planning interventions geared to assisting clients in self-assessing the degree of control they have over their lives, whether their control responses are functional, and, most importantly, how to develop more effective control strategies. These strategies include ways to balance and integrate both an...