Product Description

This book advances a new understanding of producing change in psychotherapy. It proposes the concept of interaction structure, repeated mutually influencing interactions between therapist and patient that are a fundamental aspect of therapeutic action. Interaction structures allow consideration of both the intrapsychic and the interpersonal by recognizing the intrapsychic as an important basis for what occurs in clinical interaction. This book clarifies the process of therapy, and is a guide to the practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Using transcripts of clinical sessions, Dr. Enrico E. Jones offers an unusual window on the interactive structures that actually occur between patient and therapist and identifies specific interventions that successfully promote change.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1012670 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.59 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 381 pages

Review
Enrico Jones is a first-rank researcher and a wise clinician. Therapeutic Action: A Guide to Psychoanalytic Therapy tells how to select patients who will benefit from psychodynamic therapy, how to characterize what happens in the treatment, and how to assess the outcome. It proposes a new and integrative concept of therapeutic action—interaction structures—and provides lively verbatim exchanges between patient and therapist. The book is a psychodynamic treatment primer for clinicians at all levels of experience. It should find a place on the shelf of every mental health professional. (Arnold D. Richards, M.D. )

A masterful achievement! A genuine integration of systematic observation with the art of clinical practice, this is an invaluable book to guide all therapists, the experienced and the novice, through the troubled waters of psychodynamic treatment. I cannot imagine anyone who reads this book not becoming a more effective therapist as a consequence. The rich and comprehensive examples also make it an extraordinary teaching aid, providing countless opportunities for group discussion to highlight technical and theoretical differences. It is a wonderful, thoughtful, mature contribution from a clinician who has also mastered the highest levels of research sophistication. (Peter Fongay, Ph.D. )

About the Author
Enrico E. Jones, Ph.D. is professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and former head of its Psychology Clinic and Director of its Clinical Psychology Training Program. He also founded the Berkeley Psychotherapy Research Project, which for the past two decades has generated psychoanalytically informed empirical research.