The gift of therapy : an open letter to a new generation of therapists and their patients

Yalom, Irvin D 1931- (author.).

Summary: At once startlingly profound and irrestibly practical, the author's insights-let the patient matter to you; create a new kind of therapy for each patient; how and how not to use self-disclosure-help enrich the therapeutic process for both patient and counselor.

Item details

ISBN: 0061719617
ISBN: 9780061719615
Physical Description: print
xxi, 263, 32 pages : illustrations, portrait ; 21 cm
Edition: First Harper Perennial edition.
Publisher: New York : Harper Perennial, 2009.
Copyright: ©2002

Contents / Notes

General Note:	"Includes more than twenty additional pages of new therapy tips by the author"--Cover.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-263).
Formatted Contents Note:	1. Remove the obstacles to growth -- 2. Avoid diagnosis (except for insurance companies) -- 3. Therapist and patient as "fellow travelers," -- 4. Engage the patient -- 5. Be supportive -- 6. Empathy: looking out the patient's window -- 7. Teach empathy -- 8. Let the patient matter to you -- 9. Acknowledge your errors -- 10. Create a new therapy for each patient -- 11. The therapeutic act, not the therapeutic word -- 12. Engage in personal therapy -- 13. The therapist has many patients; the patient, one therapist -- 14. The here-and-now, use it, use it, use it -- 15. Why use the here-and-now? -- 16. Using the here-and-now; grow rabbit ears -- 17. Search for here-and-now equivalents -- 18. Working through issues in the here-and-now -- 19. The here-and-now energizes therapy -- 20. Use your own feelings as data -- 21. Frame here-and-now comments carefully -- 22. All is grist for the here-and-now mill -- 23. Check into the here-and-now each hour -- 24. What lies have you told me? -- 25. Blank screen? Forget it! Be real -- 26. Three kinds of therapist self-disclosure -- 27. The mechanism of therapy; be transparent -- 28. Revealing here-and-now feelings; use discretion -- 29. Revealing the therapist's personal life; use caution -- 30. Revealing your personal life; caveats -- 31. Therapist transparency and universality -- 32. Patients will resist your disclosure -- 33. Avoid the crooked cure -- 34. On taking patients further than you have gone -- 35. On being helped by your patient -- 36. Encourage patient self-disclosure -- 37. Feedback in psychotherapy -- 38. Provide feedback effectively and gently -- 39. Increase receptiveness to feedback by using "parts," -- 40. Feedback: strike when the iron is cold -- 41. Talk about death -- 42. Death and life enhancement -- 43. How to talk about death