Summary
Contents
‘It is surely worth reading, not only by the author's fellow psychiatrists, but also by psychologists in general’ — Contemporary Psychology. ’I found this book a joy to read. Each chapter sets out the orthodoxy in question, then proceeds to explain lucidly the author's difficulties with this orthodoxy and to suggest an alternative way of looking at the issues’ — Self and Society Psychotherapy's influence seems all pervasive today. But to what end? Is helping people really therapy's main mission? This provocative book explores the alternatives to psychotherapeutic orthodoxies on such vital issues as sexuality; the self; the unconscious; creativity; and the dilemma of evil. Erensto Spinelli challenges psychotherapy, asking if it has retreated from its early promise of being a pivotal agent in our attempts to discover what it means to be human, in exchange for its current role as a pacifier of personal and social unease.
The Mirror and the Hammer: Some Hesitant Steps towards a More Humane Psychotherapy
The Mirror and the Hammer: Some Hesitant Steps towards a More Humane Psychotherapy
Unlike many of my colleagues, I have never considered psychotherapy to be ‘my calling’. I cannot remember a time in my youth when, faced with considering the various work options open to me, I gave psychotherapy any serious thought. It was, more accurately, a profession into which I somehow drifted more out of unforeseen circumstance than planned action. Still, I would not deny that a number of the themes and issues surrounding psychotherapy interested me, and, happily, continue to do so. Nonetheless, while I mainly enjoy and value my encounters with clients, students and colleagues, it remains the case that ...
