THE THERAPIST'S USE OF
SELF IN FAMILY THERAPY
Endorsements
SELF IN FAMILY THERAPY
Endorsements
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Although ostensibly a book for the family therapist, the relational
systems model that Dr. Daniel Bochner has developed effects a
relatively seamless integration of the interpersonal with the
intrapsychic and makes this dazzlingly brilliant book a must-read for
family and individual therapists alike. Bochner is eminently qualified:
he has a profound understanding of, and respect for, psychoanalytic
theories; extensive training in, and experience with, family systems
theories; and a powerfully integrative and sophisticated mind. This
unique combination has enabled him to construct a comprehensive
model of therapeutic action that ingeniously synthesizes the best that
one-person and two-person psychologies have to offer. Drawing upon
contemporary psychoanalytic theories that conceive of the
countertransference as co-created, as a story about both therapist and
patient (that is, the patient's impact on the therapist), Bochner
advances his belief that all therapists are continuously responding
emotionally - whether wittingly or unwittingly - to their patients.
These responses inform both their understanding and how they
intervene. In essence, countertransference is inevitable, necessary,
and even desirable, particularly in the hands of a therapist who is wise
to the ways in which her own experience is ever being shaped by her
patients' expectations. This is truly an extraordinary book that is at
once inspired and inspiring. Bravo!
---Martha Stark, M.D. Faculty, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and
Massachussetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. Author, Modes of
Therapeutic Action: Enhancement of Knowledge, Provision of
Experience, and Engagement in Relationship; Working With
Resistance.
systems model that Dr. Daniel Bochner has developed effects a
relatively seamless integration of the interpersonal with the
intrapsychic and makes this dazzlingly brilliant book a must-read for
family and individual therapists alike. Bochner is eminently qualified:
he has a profound understanding of, and respect for, psychoanalytic
theories; extensive training in, and experience with, family systems
theories; and a powerfully integrative and sophisticated mind. This
unique combination has enabled him to construct a comprehensive
model of therapeutic action that ingeniously synthesizes the best that
one-person and two-person psychologies have to offer. Drawing upon
contemporary psychoanalytic theories that conceive of the
countertransference as co-created, as a story about both therapist and
patient (that is, the patient's impact on the therapist), Bochner
advances his belief that all therapists are continuously responding
emotionally - whether wittingly or unwittingly - to their patients.
These responses inform both their understanding and how they
intervene. In essence, countertransference is inevitable, necessary,
and even desirable, particularly in the hands of a therapist who is wise
to the ways in which her own experience is ever being shaped by her
patients' expectations. This is truly an extraordinary book that is at
once inspired and inspiring. Bravo!
---Martha Stark, M.D. Faculty, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and
Massachussetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. Author, Modes of
Therapeutic Action: Enhancement of Knowledge, Provision of
Experience, and Engagement in Relationship; Working With
Resistance.
Daniel Bochner's book is an ambitious integration of psychoanalysis and
family systems theory. He shows that the therapist can be most effective
in this system when she enters as a full participant, and that this occurs
principally and most effectively through her use of countertransference.
A special asset of this book is the careful explication of the position of
major contributors on the use of the therapist's self. This book is a
much-needed addition to the literature on the use of self in family
therapy. It is an inventive, scholarly, clear, and beautifully constructed
invitation to therapists to thoughtfully use the whole of their experience
in the therapeutic encounter.
---David E. Scharff, M.D. Co-Director of the International Institute of
Object Relations Therapy and co-author of Object Relations Family
Therapy; Scharff Notes: A Primer of Object Relations Therapy;and The
Sexual Relationship: An Object Relations View of Sex and the Family.
family systems theory. He shows that the therapist can be most effective
in this system when she enters as a full participant, and that this occurs
principally and most effectively through her use of countertransference.
A special asset of this book is the careful explication of the position of
major contributors on the use of the therapist's self. This book is a
much-needed addition to the literature on the use of self in family
therapy. It is an inventive, scholarly, clear, and beautifully constructed
invitation to therapists to thoughtfully use the whole of their experience
in the therapeutic encounter.
---David E. Scharff, M.D. Co-Director of the International Institute of
Object Relations Therapy and co-author of Object Relations Family
Therapy; Scharff Notes: A Primer of Object Relations Therapy;and The
Sexual Relationship: An Object Relations View of Sex and the Family.
For the past fifty years psychoanalytic psychotherapy and family therapy
have developed largely as separate worlds, with most practitioners
comfortably settled in one camp or another. Dr. Bochner is part of a new
generation of therapists, trained in both of these traditions and committed
to exploring a dialogue between them. He noticed that around 1950, at
the time family therapy was poised to break away from analytic thinking,
psychoanalysis began a revolutionary turn in a more relational direction.
This shift, Dr. Bochner argues, occurred with the introduction of the
totalistic view of countertransference as all the analyst's emotional
reactions to the patient. As a result, psychoanalysis has become a
different field from the one the early family therapy pioneers were
escaping. In this volume Dr. Bochner explains how this broader view of
the therapist's countertransference reactions informs the family therapist's
use of self and contributes to a new, systemic understanding of both
intrapsychic and interpersonal functioning. Family therapists have much
to learn from concepts such as splitting, projective identification, and the
paranoid and depressive positions, which have deepened clinical practice
over the past several decades. And psychoanalytic thinkers can benefit
from Dr. Bochner's original application of these ideas in creating his
systemic relational model.
---Stephen J. Schultz, Ph.D. Author, Family Systems Therapy: An
Integration; and Family Systems Thinking.
have developed largely as separate worlds, with most practitioners
comfortably settled in one camp or another. Dr. Bochner is part of a new
generation of therapists, trained in both of these traditions and committed
to exploring a dialogue between them. He noticed that around 1950, at
the time family therapy was poised to break away from analytic thinking,
psychoanalysis began a revolutionary turn in a more relational direction.
This shift, Dr. Bochner argues, occurred with the introduction of the
totalistic view of countertransference as all the analyst's emotional
reactions to the patient. As a result, psychoanalysis has become a
different field from the one the early family therapy pioneers were
escaping. In this volume Dr. Bochner explains how this broader view of
the therapist's countertransference reactions informs the family therapist's
use of self and contributes to a new, systemic understanding of both
intrapsychic and interpersonal functioning. Family therapists have much
to learn from concepts such as splitting, projective identification, and the
paranoid and depressive positions, which have deepened clinical practice
over the past several decades. And psychoanalytic thinkers can benefit
from Dr. Bochner's original application of these ideas in creating his
systemic relational model.
---Stephen J. Schultz, Ph.D. Author, Family Systems Therapy: An
Integration; and Family Systems Thinking.
This is a comprehensive and creative treatment of countertransference,
an important but neglected topic in family therapy. It is also a significant
advance in the movement to integrate psychoanalytic thinking into family
therapy.
---Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D. Faculty, Family Institute at Northwestern
University. Author, Internal Family Systems Therapy. Co-author, Family
Therapy: Concepts and Methods; Metaframeworks: Transcending the
Models of Family Therapy; Essentials of Family Therapy; Handbook of
Family Therapy Training and Supervision; and The Mosaic Mind:
Empowering the Tormented Selves of Child Abuse Survivors.
an important but neglected topic in family therapy. It is also a significant
advance in the movement to integrate psychoanalytic thinking into family
therapy.
---Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D. Faculty, Family Institute at Northwestern
University. Author, Internal Family Systems Therapy. Co-author, Family
Therapy: Concepts and Methods; Metaframeworks: Transcending the
Models of Family Therapy; Essentials of Family Therapy; Handbook of
Family Therapy Training and Supervision; and The Mosaic Mind:
Empowering the Tormented Selves of Child Abuse Survivors.