Bad Therapy

In the book poisonous Therapy Master Therapists Share Their batter Failures by Jeffrey A Kottler it shows how other(a) healers use psychotherapy and how the healers deem definite sessions as sturdy therapy. When the authors began this carry their aim was to create an fortune by which any(prenominal) of the most prominent therapists in the sports stadium could talk some what they considered to be their worst work in order to encourage other practitioners to be more open to admitting their mistakes. The authors are among the 22 therapists who agreed to infix in the project.The result of the interviews, all conducted over the telephone is this collection of compact and very readable accounts. The credentials of the list of contributors to the book are impressive. In the preface the authors explained that they selected the participants because all were prominent and influential, had a body of published work and years of clinical take in. Arnold A. Lazarus, a pioneer of B ehavior Therapy is among the keeprs. Between them, the authors unaccompanied have written over 70 books on counseling and psychotherapy. The volume of these therapists are working in a public professional life.They write books, run disciplineing courses, lecture and demonstrate their techniques to large professional audiences. They prove tapes and videos of their work. Throughout the text there are umpteen references to the anxiety affected by the nature of the subject on which these therapists were asked to hypothesize this because of the possibility of a lawsuit and laws. Each chapter is a narrative account of the conversation the authors had with the therapist who was asked to talk about incidences in his or her clinical employ which elicited uncomfortable memories, bumpings of distress or guilt, or a sense of failure.Strong wildness is laid upon what cigarette be learned from the mistakes. I found this and the more general reflections on the theme of what makes th erapy big(a) helpful to me considering a vocation in the clinical practice. The refreshing honesty of the therapists accounts that gave me a sense of the tensions that arise during these sessions, projecting an image of perfection, and stories of miraculous successes (p. 189) or the stunning failures (p. ix). These words made me reflect on the nature of glorification and its opposite, devaluation on what success and failure means in therapy.It also helped me to reflect on the high expectations we put on ourselves as therapist to train well and to be viewed as doing a good job in the eyes of our lymph glands, peers, trainers and supervisors. There is an uncertainty to what we view as good and what is bounteous in therapy. Good and bad can become intertwined with emotionally aerated meaning along the success-failure road and their use is dependent upon expectations of good techniques or good interpretations. The value of the ordinary human contact with the thickening can get cau ght up in an anxiety ridden preoccupation with the right route of doing things.At the beginning of the book, the authors state that they tried for a cross section of congresswoman styles and theoretical orientations (p. x). But none of the 22 contributing therapist practices in the psychodynamic tradition. The therapeutic relationship is known as being important and the interaction mingled with therapist and client is very much the basis of what happens in these accounts but the term transference is used only once or twice and not explained.The term countertransference is used in some(prenominal) places and in the context of some exploration of interpersonal dynamics but this is not explained either as a concept or as a useful frame within which to understand what happens in the emotional field between therapist and client. One of the few exceptions occurs in the discussion between the authors and Richard Schwartz (p. 51-52) in which the therapist talks about the importance of noting countertransference thoughts or ways, commenting that many therapists do not think about their own emotional responses to their clients.In several accounts, the therapist was left with a hangover of guilt or regret as a result of the bad therapy practiced. If a detailed exploration of the transference and countertransference dynamics had been possible then I mistrustful the concenter of what was bad might have been shifted from it being a bad technique or an unfortunate intervention or maybe strategy to the engaging of arrest that psychoanalytic psychotherapists are more familiar with.Also the impact of unconscious projection and introjections upon ourselves and our clients behavior or emotional response, an good caseful was given of this occurrence in the first chapter when the therapist, Kottler, briefly describes how he got mad at a client who would not dump her abusive boyfriend, and told her not to come back because he could not help her and then hoped she get be tter care elsewhere from another therapist.If a way of attempting to work what happened in this session were to think about the repetitive actions of an explosive point in the clients life during the session, the conclusion that this was bad therapy would be different. The kind of understanding that a psychodynami addressy trained therapist or counsellor brings on some of these accounts made gave me a sense of what could happen during a session, such as Jeffrey Kottlers confession to sometimes feeling invisible and impertinent as part of the personal process he ascertained in interviewing the contributors (p.195). twain authors remarked that the contributors did not go deeper (pgs. 195, 197). Neither really explains what they meant by this and I suspect a similar sentiment is felt by many therapists. I felt there was a certain lack of depth and marrow to the book because of the absence of consideration of the workings of the unconscious attend. The meaning of bad therapy mus t be deemed by individuals reading the book.But in the book bad therapy means In summary, bad therapy occurs when either the client or the therapist is not satisfied with the result and when that outcome can be traced to the therapists repeated miscalculations, misjudgments, or mistakes (p. 198). It would be very interesting to top this suspense of what makes for bad therapy by opening a clinically oriented debate among psychodynamic counselors and psychotherapists. What is the difference between bad practice and bad take care in psychotherapy and counseling would be a good question to pose.Both the therapists and clients may from time to time have a bad experience of each other or of the effects of our words or of feelings which cannot be thought about or adequately contained in a atomic number 53 moment. If we are open enough to be available to receive our clients projections and be affected by emotions unconsciously intended to be a communication, we will no doubt feel the ba d emotions or the mental state being projected. It will be enough to call this countertransference.If a bad experience is not able to be accept then transforming the experience into something understandable in terms of the need of the client or even the mental state of the therapist it could become an example of bad therapy. What makes for bad therapy cannot be limited to doubtful strategies or mistimed interpretations or the wrong techniques. We are human in relationship to another and unceasingly affected by the emotional impact the other has on us if we are not really emotionally present to the client for some reason or if the client is using the therapist to communicate his or her experience of not being responded to emotionally.The point is that therapists need to find shipway of transcending the experience so that it can be understood or changed by being given the benefit of thoughtful reflection. This may be a result of consulting our internal supervisor or of talking with a certain peer group or external supervisor or consultant. other related question has to do with the responsibility we take upon ourselves for superintending and understanding what we call countertransference. In the book the point is made, several times, which we can all too easily label or blame our clients for their bad behavior or resistance or ability to make us feel tired, angry or irritable.Are we so focused on what the client does to us and on using this as a helpful therapeutic dent that the therapist will lose sight of their own state of mind or emotion which Freud cautions in relation to countertransference may be meddlesome with therapists ability? We need our peer colleagues and supervisors to help monitor therapists state of mind and reactions to their clients so that the ability to enter into the experience of the encounter with the client does not turn into a case of bad practice due to the absence of reflective thinking or insightful monitoring.I would preach Bad Therapy to both trainees and the more experienced counselors and psychotherapists for its very thought provoking and interesting content as well as the unusual opportunity to gain insight into the mind and emotions of the practitioner at work. Reference Kottler, J. A. , & Carlson, J. (2003). Bad therapy Master therapists share their worst failures. New York Brunner-Routledge.