Love and Therapy

Divine Charura is a Senior Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy at Leeds Beckett University. He is an adult psychotherapist who works in the NHS, voluntary sector, and in private practice. He is also an independent trainer, supervisor, and coach. Divine has been a key note speaker at various conferences and continues to give lectures and to facilitate training in different areas of psychotherapy, including the importance of love and attachment in psychological well-being and lifelong development. He has published various papers and book chapters. Divine is also a keen saxophone player and is passionate about music, poetry, art, photography and outdoor pursuits. Stephen Paul recently retired as Director of the Centre for Psychological Therapies at Leeds Metropolitan University (now Leeds Beckett University). He is a client-centred psychotherapist, and co-editor of 'The Therapeutic Relationship: Themes and Perspectives' (with Sheila Haugh, 2008). His published work includes chapters on love, spirituality and therapy, as well as on coaching and group therapy. Stephen has worked in both adult and child and adolescent psychiatry. He opened one of the first independent counselling centres in the UK, in Bradford, in 1978, and has been head of a therapeutic school and director of the VSO programme in Bhutan. He now writes, practises therapy, supervision and coaching, and provides training.

'Can a therapist really love all their clients? Is universal love a meaningful idea at all? Some might hold it as an ideal to love all others the same, but a person who is treated the same as all others does not feel loved. Love has something to do with making the love object special. To treat everyone the same may be a worthy value of social administration in a democratic society, but is that love? Is not love something about honouring the uniqueness of the individual and standing alongside them, even in struggles against other individuals. Is not love about taking sides? Can love and political correctness be reconciled? Should they be, or is there a necessary tension or even conflict between them? Is therapy a form of social administration and control or is it about liberation therefrom? A book of this kind has an almost limitless field. To reflect on such matters is also a kind of love and, one hopes, may lead us to dissolve at least some of the barriers to this most important of perennial mysteries.'--From the Foreword by David Brazier, president at International Zen Therapy Institute'This is a courageous and valuable book which carefully considers the part love plays in the therapeutic process from a diverse range of viewpoints. It will be of great interest to all whose work has a therapeutic perspective.'--William West, Visiting Professor at the University of Chester, author of Spiritual Issues in Therapy

• UKCP Series Preface , Foreword , Introduction , What has love to do with it? , Love and its shadows: an existential view , Humanistic and transpersonal perspectives on love , Psychoanalytic perspectives of love , Love: psychosexual perspectives , Physical love , Love, separation, and reconciliation: systemic theory and its relationship with emotions , Working with children: the importance of love , The place of love in crisis support , Transcultural perspectives and themes on love and hate: the yin and yang of relationships , Memento mori and carpe diem: love and death , Love: retaking a stance , Therapy and neuroscience: what has the L-word to do with it? , Afterword