Ebook: Introduction to the Practice of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

This is a practice-oriented textbook which aims to demystify psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Teaching and learning psychoanalytic therapy is a less clear-cut process than for other therapies, and it is easy for students to feel overwhelmed. This accessible guide is based on the author's own long experience of teaching trainee practitioners, and is built on the core premise that psychoanalysis is not so much skill-based as dependent upon development of the analytic attitude, guided by principles of technique that are used in the clinical situation. The book provides step-by-step guidance and useful pointers in key areas such as how to make interpretations, how to carry out assessments, how to formulate cases in psychodynamic terms and how to approach endings, it presents critical information in an accessible way with case studies and practice guidelines, explaining the processes which underpin psychoanalytic psychotherapy as clearly and simply as possible. The Second Edition is updated throughout, with notable new material on findings from neuroscience and the increasing evidence base for psychoanalytic psychotherapy, the US relational school and the development of Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy, and recent studies in transference.;Brave New worlds : A psychoanalysis fit for the twenty-first century -- An overview of the schools of psychoanalysis : theory and practice -- The process of psychic change -- The analytic setting frame and the analytic attitude -- Assessment and formulation -- Unconscious communication -- Defences and resistance -- Transference and countertransference -- Working with endings.