Close Encounters
A Relational View of the Therapeutic Process
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Jason Aronson Publishers
Published:1st Jun '94
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
The traditional view of the therapeutic interaction fails to capture the heart of the process when it pictures the therapist as disinterested and distanced agent of change. Growing interest in the helpful use of countertransference reflects a shift toward a two-person view of treatment. There has been surprisingly little effort, however, to explore systematically the full potential of such a model for making sense of the therapeutic process. Emphasis on the relational aspect of treatment has too often been derisively equated with the idea that cure occurs through a sophisticated form of parental caring with the role of interpretation being essentially incidental. The fear of being discredited in this way has kept therapists from trying to conceptualize the ways in which a two-person process in fact underlies the patient's and therapist's search for meaning. Contrasts a One-person and a Two-person Analysis of an Initial Interview In Close Encounters, Dr. Robert Winer takes on this quest. He begins by dramatizing the differences through contrasting a one-person and a two-person analysis of an initial interview. Having demonstrated the problem he then reviews the ways in which both American and British authors have introduced relational considerations and shows how the intrapsychic and interpersonal views of man complement each other. Throughout the book, Dr. Winer illustrates his reasoning with clinical accounts in which he offers a frank and vivid description of his own participation. Marriage Can be Usefully Taken as a Metaphor for Therapy Dr. Winer explores the two-person view from a variety of vantage points. He suggests that the implicit model of therapy as a parent-child endeavor can be usefully revised by taking marriage as the metaphor. From another perspective, he suggests that the contemporary interest in narratives makes more sense when the storytelling is conceptualized as a two-person endeavor. Freud's account of his treatment of the Wolf Man is offered as a cautionary tale to illustr
The book will meet the needs of beginning clinicians and more experienced analysts alike. The writing is clear and descriptive as he integrates a considerable amount of theory with extensive clinical material. Winer provides us with a forum for debate and the book will be especially helpful in teaching seminars. * Psychoanalytic Books: A Quarterly Journal Of Reviews *
Bob Winer has written an eloquent and illuminating description of the analytic process as analytic encounter. Informed by his unique synthesis of diverse schools of psychoanalytic thought, his extensive analytic work with individuals, couples and families has led him to a view of therapy as a passionate, mutually subjective encounter that engages the whole being of both analyst and patient. Forsaking theoretical jargon for an experiential focus on the existential reality of the analytic couple, Winer re-examines familiar issues of transference and countertransference, abstinence and neutrality, therapeutic factors, multiple meanings of narrative, the dynamics of supervision and even the politics of the analytic relationship. In the end, he arrives at a view of treatment that is 'relational' in the best sense of the term. His work is thought provoking, original and refreshingly honest. In his hands, analysis comes alive as a profound and moving adventure for both participants, part peril and part ordeal, one that they each must grow from if they are to fulfill their analytic compact and complete their analytic task. -- Howard B. Levine, M.D.
More and more we appreciate the truly intersubjective nature of the exchange between therapist and patient. Close Encounters makes an important contribution to our expanding understanding of what really happens in psychotherapy. Winer has a unique and personal point of view. He calls attention to corners of our experience that we ordinarily are all too ready to leave unexamined. His case illustrations are vivid and readable. He takes up aspects of the politics of the therapeutic relationship, of supervision, and of the mental health community, pointing us toward new and clinically useful ways of thinking about how an individual functions within a group–even a group of two. Winer has a wonderful quirky candor that puts one in mind of invaluable psychoanalytic provocateurs like Winnicott and Searles. -- Owen Renik, M.D.
A wonderful book, clear, independent-minded, knowing, and wry. It may be the first extended clinical discussion that takes the interpersonal viewpoint to its logical endpoints: that the field is so complex as often to be unknowable, that we must study ourselves and our situations with at least as much energy and intelligence as we study the patients', that the method is not 'narrative' or 'objective truth,' but negotiation and collaboration. -- Leston Havens, M.D.
ISBN: 9780876681657
Dimensions: 235mm x 170mm x 26mm
Weight: 558g
296 pages