Learning and Teaching Therapy

In today's rapidly changing health care environment, more is being asked of therapists than ever before. Mental health practitioners were once able to learn one particular approach, work only with "appropriate" clients who actively sought therapy, and treat them for however long it seemed necessary. Managed care has changed all that. Professionals must be: ready to use a variety of approaches; skilled in brief therapy techniques; prepared to deal with a range of clients representing different classes and ethnicities; and flexible enough to adapt to each particular case, including those involving violence, abuse, and court-ordered clients. What is required is a consistent ideology to frame the variety of ways of doing therapy and an ability to draw what is best from each approach. Bringing the seasoned professional up to date with the tools needed to thrive in the field today and providing students with a solid grounding in actual practice, this book explores new ways to think about therapy and creatively apply them in practice. Topics covered include:

*Essential elements of effective therapy
*Dealing with a broad range of clients
*Making the most out of a training program
*Adapting clinical approaches to specific situations
*The merits and disadvantages of live supervision
*How to recognize and build upon a therapist's unique skills
* Selecting a supervisor for training

Written in clear, concise language and enlivened by Haley's trademark wit, chapters are filled with case examples and verbatim transcripts of therapy interviews that bring the issues to life.

Jay Haley, one of the founders of family therapy, is former Director of the Family Therapy Institute of Washington, D.C. He has served as a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at a number of universities and was a Research Associate at Stanford University. He was Director of Family Therapy Research at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic and Director of the Family Experiment Project at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto. The founding editor of Family Process, Haley is a prolific writer who has authored, co-authored, or edited 19 books and numerous articles.