Lives Transformed

Patricia Coughlin Della Selva, Ph.D., maintains a private practice in Albany, New York. In addition to treating patients, she teaches at Albany Medical School, writes professionally, and conducts training workshops for mental health professionals around the world.

'This is a book of exceptional depth and practicality on how to work with emotion. It is both clear and full of the richest description of seven cases that one could hope to fi nd. One learns how a therapist actually does therapy, and therefore how to do therapy. I could pay a book no higher compliment. By reading it one learns how to work with affect and somatic experience. One sees in rich and concrete detail how a therapist confronts defences, first against affect and emotional closeness, and then against unacknowledged anger and grief, which lie at the heart of much human experience and distress. The therapist promotes a full, direct experience of these previously avoided feelings. The observed therapeutic effects provide evidence that the direct experience of emotion is the key to healing in psychotherapy.'- Leslie S. Greenberg, Professor, Dept. of Psychology, York University, Toronto

• Overture, Technique, Literature -- Overture -- Introduction to the theory and technique of Davanloo’s ISTDP -- The literature: empirical support for Davanloo's ISTDP -- Exposition: Four Detailed Therapies -- The Man Divided -- The Cold-Blooded Businessman -- The Good Girl with Ulcerative Colitis -- The Woman with Dissociation -- General Discussion -- The relation between predictions and actual events -- Aspects of initial evaluation -- Aspects of therapy -- Aspects of outcome -- Recapitulation and Coda -- The present work, traditional dynamic psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis -- Conclusions -- Coda -- Epilogue