Description
Book SynopsisDr Alistair Ross is a University of Oxford academic whose previous work has been described by Ruby Wax as âvery, very smartâ. This new introductory book strikes an easy balance between theory and practice. It takes the reader from the fieldâs Freudian roots to its contemporary applications, skills and insights.
Over the last 30 years, important new theoretical ideas, skills and clinical practices have emerged in counselling and psychotherapy. While key Freudian concepts like transference, counter-transference and the influence of the past on the present remain vital to psychodynamic work, research drawn from infant development, neuroscience, the role of the sacred, and intersubjective approaches to relationships has changed the way therapists understand and work with clients. Either in its own right or as part of an integrative approach, psychodynamic counselling and psychotherapy have an important role to play in developments to come.
The bookâs features include:
Table of Contents
PART ONE: Setting the scene
1. Introduction – The meaning of psychodynamic theory in therapy
2. Understanding the past – How did we get here?
3. Understanding the present – The role of research
4. Encountering the new – Meeting a dancing landscape
PART TWO: Meeting the unconscious
5. Who owns the unconscious?
6. The evolving unconscious
7. The implicit unconscious
PART THREE: How we develop
8. The infant unconscious – Oedipus, bad breasts, lines and stages
9. Learning from babies – Attachment, the interpersonal self and infant research
10. Learning from our brains – Infant development and neuroscience
11. Learning about sexuality, gender and identity
PART FOUR: Clinical perspectives
12. When life goes wrong – Introducing psychopathology and trauma
13. Foundational skills for practice
14. Developing skills for practice
15. Therapeutic engagement and the process of change
