Unconscious Communication in Practice

E. Mary Sullivan (editor)

School of Psychotherapy & Counselling, Regent's College, London, 1999.

Contributors: Vesna Bonac, Fiorella Gatti-Doyle, Gabrielle Gunton, Carol Holmes, Gae Oaten, Marie-Luise Petersen, James O Raney, David Livingston Smith, E. Mary Sullivan, Ivan Thorpe, Kitty Warburton.

• What is the nature and purpose of unconscious communication?
• How significant is the management of the therapeutic boundaries?
• How important is the client's contribution to the curative process in psychotherapy?

This book represents the most up-to-date thinking on psychoanalysis. Communicative theory re-visions the therapeutic encounter, addressing some of the criticisms which have been levelled at classical psychoanalytic technique. Rather than focusing on the distorted elements of clients' communications, and relating these to past experience, it highlights clients' valid unconscious perceptions of therapists' management of the therapeutic environment. The hallmark of communicative technique is that it gives precedence to clients' innate capacity to guide the treatment process. Thus the balance of power - a thorny issue in psychoanalytic psychotherapy - is consistently addressed.

Those who work in the field of psychotherapy may gain fresh clinical skills from the innovative ideas set out in this book; those interested in human interaction will find a new perspective on the purpose of unconscious communication and insight into how to decode the stories we all tell each other in everyday life.

Contents:

Editor's preface - Communicative psychotherapy without tears.

Part one:
Theory into practice.
Understanding patients' countertransferences.
Confessions of a communicative psychotherapist.
The informative value of erroneous questions.
Moments of mystery and confusion:- transference interpretation of acting-out.

Part two:
Altered frames.
Brief communicative psychotherapy.
Student counselling: a consideration of ethical and framework issues.
Therapist illness: a communicative exploration of an interrupted therapy.
The two parts of myself: Kathy and Rogers decoded.

Part three:
Dreams and stories.
Dream analysis from a communicative perspective.
Dream psychotherapy and a fragment from a continuing story.
Madness and reason: - Shakespeare's King Lear and the psychoanalytic frame.

Part four:
Conclusion
Stories, settings and supervision: some thoughts and questions.

Published February 1999 240pp

ISBN 0 335 20198 9 Paperback £16.99
ISBN 0 335 20199 7 Hardback £50.00