Search results for ""Author Peter Fraenkel""

Therapy with couples on the brink of relationship dissolution involves unique challenges. Partners present with high levels of conflict, low levels of intimate connection, disdain and discouragement, and limited patience or hope. These couples have often tried therapy without lasting success, and announce that “this is our last chance". Partners want to see evidence in the first session that the therapist can offer something new and that change is possible. Peter Fraenkel presents a practical, creative, integrative approach that combines action-and insight-oriented techniques to help last-chance couples manage conflict, modulate intense negative emotions, address power struggles, develop mutual compassion, and restore emotional intimacy and pleasurable connection. Special attention is paid to developing a collaborative therapeutic alliance when partners have little motivation for therapy or faith that it can be effective. Through engaging in “nonbinding experiments in possibility", partners can then better evaluate whether to “stay or go”.

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This volume presents a groundbreaking understanding of incest and an innovative, family-based approach to treatment. The authors show that while not all incestuously abused children experience the classic diagnostic symptoms of trauma, virtually all do experience relational trauma --disruptions in the sense of safety, security, loyalty, and trust that may block connection and communication with nonoffending family members. Systematically combining individual and family sessions, the relational treatment model focuses on strengthening the child's protective relationships, mobilizing the family to help resolve the child's emotional and behavioral symptoms, and building the family's resiliency. Filled with annotated case material that illuminates the challenging treatment choices and dilemmas facing the clinician, this book offers essential guidance for anyone working with families in which incest has occurred.

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This text and professional resource offers an alternative approach to thinking about and working with “difficult” families. From a nonpathologizing stance, William C. Madsen demonstrates creative ways to help family members shift their relationship to longstanding problems; envision desired lives; and develop more proactive coping strategies. Anyone working with families in crisis, especially in settings where time and resources are scarce, will gain valuable insights and tools from this book.

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