Deliberate Practice in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

This book fills an essential need, one that has gone unaddressed for too long. The authors provide deceptively simple yet sophisticated exercises tailor-made for mastering skills that help beginning psychodynamic psychotherapists to settle into themselves and deepen their work with clients. These exercises elegantly complement the more usual—and indispensable—educational experiences of acquiring theoretical knowledge and participating in meaningful supervisory and personal therapy relationships, contributing to the development of creative, reflective, and skillful practitioners. -- Joan E. Sarnat, PhD, ABPP, Faculty and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, San Francisco, CA, United States, and author of "Supervision Essentials for Psychodynamic Psychotherapies"
Deliberate Practice in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy is a gift of clarity and focus to developing therapists. Too often, relational treatment approaches have been vague in helping trainees conceptualize and intervene within the therapeutic relationship. Many supervisees describe themselves as “imposters”—painfully unsure of what to say or do to help. This foundational text empowers therapists by providing experiential, multistep practices for each key concept. Kudos to the authors for bringing these comprehensive training practices to our field. -- Edward Teyber, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Psychology, California State University, San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA, United States
This is a rare gem of a book that distills the essence of psychodynamic therapy from an art form to a science that can be deliberately taught with focused, practical guidance and exercises that are graded for the beginner, intermediate, and advanced clinician. It will make supervisors better able to teach specific skills and help trainees find their own voice and become more effective therapists. Invaluable! -- Mantosh Dewan, MD, President and SUNY Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, United States
This work represents the leading edge of innovation in the training and practice of psychotherapy. The authors effectively combine the scientific principles of deliberate practice to build expertise with focused clinical exercises designed to develop specific therapy skill sets. The integration between evidence-based learning strategies and clinical practice makes this a seminal work in the field of psychotherapy training and supervision. -- Mark Hilsenroth, PhD, Adelphi University, Derner School of Psychology, Garden City, NY, United States
Psychodynamic psychotherapy teaching is typically conceptual or observational and is in competition with more skill-oriented modalities. The authors have identified some of the essential elements of psychodynamic psychotherapy and brilliantly created extremely effective exercises that enable trainees or experienced therapists to develop or hone specific relevant skills. These include traditional techniques that focus on process, defenses, and interpretation, as well as more affectively focused skills, such as deepening affect, use of metaphor, and the creation of corrective emotional experiences that facilitate achievement of effective outcomes in a time-sensitive and focused manner. -- Richard D. Lane, MD, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States
This book provides psychotherapy clinicians, supervisors, and trainers with a unique, practice-based guide for the development of therapeutic expertise in brief psychodynamic psychotherapy. In particular, the identification and thoughtful delineation of 12 core skills that underlay psychodynamic therapy approaches, along with the provision of tailored experiential exercises that enhance skill development, will make a singular contribution to psychotherapy training and the practice literature. -- Lynne Angus, PhD, CPsych, Professor Emerita, Senior Scholar, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada