Barbara Jo Brothers – författare

Couples: Building Bridges shows therapists how to successfully apply basic principles of human interaction and communication to help facilitate intimate connections between people. Using the approaches in this book, you will see how the bridge between couples materializes naturally as a result of the combination of respect, truth, careful observations, awareness, and shared information.Contributors in Couples: Building Bridges encourage therapists to bring their own behavior into awareness--to see themselves as the major instrument of change in the therapy process and to recognize that work must begin with themselves before starting to work with couples. However, the book stresses that therapy is not something performed on a couple but rather a process geared toward increasing the range of choice of behavior for clients.Therapists working with couples or with individuals seeking therapy concerning their intimate relationships will find Couples: Building Bridges a valuable reference for promoting healthy, open relationships.

Couples, Trauma, and Catastrophes examines the issues and hardships couples face when dealing with traumatic circumstances, such as illness, child abduction, or the death of a child. From case studies and recommendations from other therapists, you will learn how to better help clients identify sources of pain and strength and help their relationships or marriages endure crises.In order to cope with the emotional stress of a tragic event, an individual needs support that is, many times, offered by a significant other. In this book, you will learn of models and suggestions that help couples communicate with each other and connect in times of great need. Couples, Trauma, and Catastrophes examines many topics that will improve your effectiveness with your clients, such as:trying to substitute another person's identity as your own and the harm it causes you and your relationship describing how to help couples hold, tell, master, and honor their traumas through therapy dealing with the death of a child through intimacy therapy and emotional responding describing congenital pseudarthrosis (CPT) and recommendations to lessen stress for the parents, such as sharing information and advice in a certain manner to avoid anger and hurt feelings and participating in a support group examining “survivor guilt” and how it negatively affects an individual and his/her relationships Observing theories from Virginia Satir and Viktor Frankl, this book offers exercises that couples can perform in therapy or at home that will help them cope with trauma. Giving you suggestions and theories that can be used to fit a variety of situations, Couples, Trauma, and Catastrophes provides you with proven, successful methods that will increase your effectiveness with clients dealing with catastrophes.

From Couples and Pregnancy: Welcome, Unwelcome, and In-Between, therapists will gain valuable insight into the profound psychological effects that pregnancy and birth have on a couple's relationship, especially on their experience of intimacy. However, as this unique book discusses, the nature of the impact on couples depends on the developmental stage of each person and the couple's ability to adapt to new circumstances. This intelligent guide also examines the challenges that confront couples who must deal with unwelcome pregnancies. Couples and Pregnancy provides you with successful techniques that can easily be adopted into your practice, enabling you to effectively help couples who are challenged by the emotional and life-changing event of parenthood. Couples and Pregnancy addresses the psychological as well as the therapeutic issues as a consequence of abortion and offers you insight into how you can think out of the box about the emotional fallout from this issue. You will discover suggestions for helping couples to strengthen their relationship while working through their issues, such as,learning about the many feelings surrounding abortion as well as natural deaths of unborn children so you will have a perspective of the unique emotional effects on each parent examining the stresses caused by couples going through fertility therapy as well as the negative effects stress can have on infertility understanding the grief and future complications for therapy that the death of a baby, miscarriage, or abortion can have for clients who are trying to work through these past issuesCouples and Pregnancy provides you with a unique perspective on the emotional complication of pregnancies, so you can gain insight into how every pregnancy leaves an impact on the parents for the rest of their lives. With this essential book, you will find valuable tips on how you can help the couple make a positive breakthrough and build a stronger relationship.

Couples Therapy in Managed Care: Facing the Crisis provides social workers, psychologists, and counselors with an overview of the negative effects of the managed care industry on the quality of mental health care. Within this book, you will discover the paradoxes that occur with the mixing of business principals and service principles and find valuable suggestions on how you can creatively cope within the managed care context. With Couples Therapy in Managed Care, you will learn how you can remain true to your own integrity and offer quality services within the current context of today's health care system. Current and comprehensive, Couples Therapy in Managed Care will assist you in easing the dilemma of patients who are suffering from serious physical illness or emotional pain and have little choice or time to search for a needed doctor or service. Couples Therapy in Managed Care offers you informative tips and suggestions on how you can help your clients within the constraints of the managed care system, such as:exploring ways to hold true to your personal values and the integrity of your personal approach to therapy while developing creative strategies to survive within managed care understanding the need to write a treatment plan using high professional standards and a solid theoretical analysis of the proposed therapy to give you a better chance of getting the managed care case manager to authorize your treatments realizing that maintaining a good working relationship with individual case managers will help you get more of your proposed treatments authorized, although their high rate of turnover makes this a daunting task discovering that a sometimes a solution to your problem may be as simple as a phone call to a case manager to negotiate an exception to a standard procedure Couples Therapy in Managed Care offers you effective suggestions to help you overcome the limitations you may encounter while trying to practice within a managed care setting. Innovative and informative, this book will help you provide your patients with the best possible therapy while offering you ways to decrease the stress that managed care systems can cause you and your clients.

Help clients grow into loving commitment!Making and keeping commitments is more difficult today than ever. About half of all marriages end in divorce, and serial monogamy is not uncommon. Couples Connecting: Prerequisites of Intimacy identifies the cultural and personal attitudes that impede commitment and impair intimacy, and it gives you the therapeutic tools to work with clients who don't know how to build a lasting love.Couples Connecting examines why past theories of self-actualization are now failing. Because our culture emphasizes individualistic values, people do not learn how to create and share bonds with others. Therapists must become developmental partners for clients who need to overcome failures of maturation in order to have successful, loving relationships with their partner. This essential guide offers you practical techniques and case studies, as well the theoretical underpinnings to deal with this crisis of intimacy. Couples Connecting provides specific, insightful studies on overcoming obstacles to genuine commitment, including:identifying patterns of anger in distressed and nondistressed couples ways to help engaged couples overcome the fear of following negative family patterns using family systems theory and psychodynamics to understand developmental issues in marriage suggestions for clinical practice with couples who fear intimacy implications of ten essential factors in intimacyCouples Connecting will help you design and use techniques to promote personal growth and bridge gaps between clients to help couples achieve satisfying and intimate relationships.

Help clients grow into loving commitment!Making and keeping commitments is more difficult today than ever. About half of all marriages end in divorce, and serial monogamy is not uncommon. Couples Connecting: Prerequisites of Intimacy identifies the cultural and personal attitudes that impede commitment and impair intimacy, and it gives you the therapeutic tools to work with clients who don't know how to build a lasting love.Couples Connecting examines why past theories of self-actualization are now failing. Because our culture emphasizes individualistic values, people do not learn how to create and share bonds with others. Therapists must become developmental partners for clients who need to overcome failures of maturation in order to have successful, loving relationships with their partner. This essential guide offers you practical techniques and case studies, as well the theoretical underpinnings to deal with this crisis of intimacy. Couples Connecting provides specific, insightful studies on overcoming obstacles to genuine commitment, including:identifying patterns of anger in distressed and nondistressed couples ways to help engaged couples overcome the fear of following negative family patterns using family systems theory and psychodynamics to understand developmental issues in marriage suggestions for clinical practice with couples who fear intimacy implications of ten essential factors in intimacyCouples Connecting will help you design and use techniques to promote personal growth and bridge gaps between clients to help couples achieve satisfying and intimate relationships.

You don't have to check your humanity at the office door!Drawing on the teachings of Virginia Satir, this humane volume is designed to help therapists bring their full selves into the therapeutic relationship. The Personhood of the Therapist examines what happens when a therapist consciously enters the process of healing in an I-Thou relationship with the client. The techniques outlined in this volume will help you develop a greater sense of openness about yourself and your feelings, enabling you to offer clients more effective services.The Personhood of the Therapist explores the myriad ways in which a therapist's emotional responses and life experiences can contribute to the client's healing. This approach is a dramatic departure from the traditional Freudian ideal of the aloof, unresponsive analyst, but the case studies in this volume will persuade you that it is powerfully effective. In addition to case studies, this thoughtful, compassionate book offers dialogues, personal reminiscences, techniques, and discussions of psychological theory. The Personhood of the Therapist offers new ideas and fresh perspectives on such life-changing issues as:self-disclosure and self-awareness for therapists ways to respect and foster the full sacredness of the client the different roles of the therapist important new views on transference and countertransferenceIt also contains deeply moving accounts of individual experiences, including: how an oncotherapist was affected by her own family's experience with cancer using Integrity Therapy to heal old wounds for a troubled couple, along with the comments of the two clients a therapist's own emotional journey through a troubled marriage and the strange disappearance of her sister The Personhood of the Therapist will help you employ your knowledge about life, not just theories, to offer better services to clients and help you appreciate how clients can enrich your life.

When men are abused, everybody suffers. This courageous book exposes a dark secret: Men are often victims of abuse. Although a great deal of attention has recently been paid to the victimization of women, the role of men as victims--not just perpetrators--has been neglected. The Abuse of Men reveals the impact of physical, sexual, and emotional trauma on the lives and relationships of men. This groundbreaking book shows how the negative effects of both basic training and combat may also cause lasting damage to men's self-esteem, ability to trust, personal boundaries, and ability to form healthy relationships. The Abuse of Men explores the prevalence of other kinds of violence and abuse toward men and boys, from child-battering to spousal abuse. It also discusses how the culture of violence and societal expectations of boys and men can help drive victims of abuse toward continuing the cycle of violence. The Abuse of Men discusses the sources of trauma, including:the quality and quantity of domestic violence committed by women against men the role of abusive fathers in raising sons who become abusers vicarious traumatization from living with partners whose uncontrolled PTSD makes them dangerously abusive hazing, military training, and other socially sanctioned male-on-male violence trauma contagion and transactional victimizingThe Abuse of Men also offers specific suggestions for therapists working with abused men and their partners, including an innovative step-by-step program for treating couples who have both been traumatized. By understanding how men and boys become victims and respond to trauma, you can help heal their pain and teach them to build positive, loving relationships.

Bring the physical dimension into your therapeutic work with couples! This helpful book offers couples therapists new and powerful techniques derived from several body-oriented therapies. This fresh approach can help you identify the hidden conflicts and attitudes of your clients. Couples and Body Therapy offers you exercises, tips, and practical suggestions for helping troubled couples. In Couples and Body Therapy, expert therapists candidly discuss the dangers and benefits of using touch to heal. Their discussion of whether, when, how, and whom to touch clients includes valuable suggestions for working through transference and countertransference, as well as for dealing with hostile clients and obtaining informed consent to touch.Couples and Body Therapy provides thoughtful explorations of the ideas and methods of well-regarded experts--including Virginia Satir, Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowen, John Pierrakos, Fritz Perls, Stanley Keleman, and John Gutman--as they apply to the physical expression of emotional states. This book draws from a number of powerful bodywork systems, including:core energetics biodynamic analysis formative psychology Hakomi GestaltUse it to learn the healing skills of body-oriented therapies, including:centering yourself before sessions giving voice to your clients’ body messages doing effective energy assessments reading posture, gesture, and somatic signals using concentration exercises and grounding techniquesPlentifully illustrated with case studies, Couples and Body Therapy is essential reading for therapists, educators, and students. It offers a repertoire of skills to give you fresh and innovative ways to uncover and heal problems in couples.

Bring the physical dimension into your therapeutic work with couples! This helpful book offers couples therapists new and powerful techniques derived from several body-oriented therapies. This fresh approach can help you identify the hidden conflicts and attitudes of your clients. Couples and Body Therapy offers you exercises, tips, and practical suggestions for helping troubled couples. In Couples and Body Therapy, expert therapists candidly discuss the dangers and benefits of using touch to heal. Their discussion of whether, when, how, and whom to touch clients includes valuable suggestions for working through transference and countertransference, as well as for dealing with hostile clients and obtaining informed consent to touch.Couples and Body Therapy provides thoughtful explorations of the ideas and methods of well-regarded experts--including Virginia Satir, Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowen, John Pierrakos, Fritz Perls, Stanley Keleman, and John Gutman--as they apply to the physical expression of emotional states. This book draws from a number of powerful bodywork systems, including:core energetics biodynamic analysis formative psychology Hakomi GestaltUse it to learn the healing skills of body-oriented therapies, including:centering yourself before sessions giving voice to your clients’ body messages doing effective energy assessments reading posture, gesture, and somatic signals using concentration exercises and grounding techniquesPlentifully illustrated with case studies, Couples and Body Therapy is essential reading for therapists, educators, and students. It offers a repertoire of skills to give you fresh and innovative ways to uncover and heal problems in couples.

Explore effective, innovative ways to foster healthy relationships!This thoughtful book discusses fresh and innovative ways to treat partners in distress. It suggests creative therapeutic ways to approach a range of problems and inner needs. Encompassing case studies, theoretical concepts, and original research, Couples, Intimacy Issues, and Addiction offers an intimate glimpse into the painful journey to marital healing.Couples, Intimacy Issues, and Addiction reveals the secret dynamics of marriages in trouble. It offers models for nontraditional relating, insight for handling such devastating crises as adultery, and a fascinating analysis of the marital crisis in the film Eyes Wide Shut. It shows how to use powerfully effective techniques including facilitated imagery, self-psychology, and a phasic model of handling adultery.Couples, Intimacy Issues, and Addiction addresses the tough issues that can shatter a marriage, including:balancing privacy and relatedness handling the intrusive memory of a late spouse facing one partner’s addiction healing from adultery and other disloyaltiesThough the problems presented in these pages are potentially devastating to any marriage, this book offers an attentive, respectful approach that will be beneficial to both partners. Couples, Intimacy Issues, and Addiction offers solid, tested advice on ways to encourage clients to confront their genuine needs and deal with the ghosts of the past. With these techniques, psychologists, social workers, and couples counselors can help partners on the brink of divorce can build a healthy marriage on a solid foundation of love and trust.

Originally published in 1991, the theme for this title is the exploration of the components of lasting, long-term relationships. It begins with the first part of an interview between Sheldon Starr and Virginia Satir, made in 1985 and is followed by a comment on that interview by the Editor. Other chapters discuss the subject of falling in love and the notion of ‘being in love’ as distinguished from ‘a love relationship’. The authors, including some who have been married for many years themselves, look at the many aspects that make long-term relationships successful. The chapters range in essence from ‘What is love?’ to ‘How is love maintained?’. This title aims to share the information the authors have gained, about what makes coupling work, with society as a whole.

First published in 1996, this enlightening book about facilitating therapeutic change within the couple relationship opens with a transcript of one of a series of lectures by Virginia Satir. It presents readers with Satir’s observations – observations that show the difference between thinking with systems in mind and thinking linearly – of process, interrelatedness and attitudes. Readers will find these and the observations of contributors that follow full of practical application potential. In this title the editor brings together contributors who show how to affect change in couples by explaining dynamics of the male/female relationship and by expanding upon the roles of the therapist. Specifically, contributors give readers information about: Male/female relationships over a 30, 000-year history and how history may have affected present day relationships between men and women Therapists as merely resource providers who facilitate self-discovery and self-solutions The necessity of marital therapy in maintaining stability and change from both systemic-interpersonal and intrapersonal perspectives Psychodynamic, affective and insight-oriented, marital therapy The consultative conversation model and its relationship to the change process in couples therapy Fostering change of psychological (emotional and verbal) abuse Why women leave abusive relationships The use of a specific physical posture for assessing a couple’s interactive styleTherapists who work with couples will keep Couples and Change within reach and refer to it often as they help couples develop more healthy, satisfying relationships.

First published in 1996, this enlightening book about facilitating therapeutic change within the couple relationship opens with a transcript of one of a series of lectures by Virginia Satir. It presents readers with Satir’s observations – observations that show the difference between thinking with systems in mind and thinking linearly – of process, interrelatedness and attitudes. Readers will find these and the observations of contributors that follow full of practical application potential. In this title the editor brings together contributors who show how to affect change in couples by explaining dynamics of the male/female relationship and by expanding upon the roles of the therapist. Specifically, contributors give readers information about: Male/female relationships over a 30, 000-year history and how history may have affected present day relationships between men and women Therapists as merely resource providers who facilitate self-discovery and self-solutions The necessity of marital therapy in maintaining stability and change from both systemic-interpersonal and intrapersonal perspectives Psychodynamic, affective and insight-oriented, marital therapy The consultative conversation model and its relationship to the change process in couples therapy Fostering change of psychological (emotional and verbal) abuse Why women leave abusive relationships The use of a specific physical posture for assessing a couple’s interactive styleTherapists who work with couples will keep Couples and Change within reach and refer to it often as they help couples develop more healthy, satisfying relationships.

Originally published in 1991, the theme for this title is the exploration of the components of lasting, long-term relationships. It begins with the first part of an interview between Sheldon Starr and Virginia Satir, made in 1985 and is followed by a comment on that interview by the Editor. Other chapters discuss the subject of falling in love and the notion of ‘being in love’ as distinguished from ‘a love relationship’. The authors, including some who have been married for many years themselves, look at the many aspects that make long-term relationships successful. The chapters range in essence from ‘What is love?’ to ‘How is love maintained?’. This title aims to share the information the authors have gained, about what makes coupling work, with society as a whole.

Here is a fascinating exploration of the powerful forces of attachment and attraction that determine the formation and styles of couples’relationships. What factors attract one person to another? What determines whether or not a healthy relationship is formed? As therapists know, there is much in this world that passes for love but is really the result of leftover dependency needs and unresolved attachment issues. Attraction and Attachment: Understanding Styles of Relationships examines issues of attachment in relationships, discusses the validity of the concept of codependency as one aspect of attachment, and explores various aspects of attraction.The contributing authors consider some of the many styles of relationships that are called love and examine some of the basic sources of attraction. Attraction and Attachment includes an in-depth evaluation of the concept of codependency, a review of the literature on attraction, methods for achieving equilibrium in sexual intimacy, and some of Virginia Satir’s insights on fear and making changes. Just a few of the specific topics explored in these important chapters include:the relationship of childhood attachment experiences and successful long-term marriages the influence of therapists’implicit philosophies on treatment options and their effectiveness in therapy a review of biological, psychological, and social psychological literature on mate selection a definition of codependency a study of the link between codependency and depression couples’acceptance of alternative treatment formatsPsychiatrists, psychologists, and clinical social workers, as well as substance abuse counselors and pastoral counselors, can discover new insights on attraction and attachment in this provocative book. All mental health professionals can find new ways of looking at the foundational elements of relationships that are invaluable to them in their work with couples.

Couples Therapy, Multiple Perspectives is a springboard from which therapists may begin to answer such questions as What are the ingredients essential to good relationships? What are the ingredients essential to activity within the psychotherapeutic relationship? How can what therapists know regarding psychotherapy be combined to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts? Barbara Jo Brothers aids therapists in answering these and other questions about the basic ingredients, the common denominators, and the universal threads of work with couples from exploring the theories and methods of successful therapists.As there are many ways of looking at couples therapy, this volume encourages therapists to work cooperatively, not competitively, in developing clients’possibilities. Couples Therapy, Multiple Perspectives is intended to assist therapists working with couples achieve a broader view of their work and a richer range of choices in helping their clients. Every article, especially the two by master therapists Florence Kaslow and Maurizio Andolfi, moves readers toward a tapestry of therapeutic possibilities.Features of Couples Therapy, Multiple Perspectives include an in-depth look at the ingredients of a successful marriage, or, what makes marriages work for the long-term by Florence Kaslow; an article by Maurizio Andolfi, translated by Vincenzo DiNicola, which brings together an excellent integration of theories, including those of Bowen, Framo, and Whitaker. Andolfi describes a transgenerational approach to work with couples in crisis, with a case example of the value of doing family-of-origin work in the initial phase of therapy. In an interview segment with Virginia Satir (with Sheldon Starr, PhD, in 1985), she explores how all good therapy has essentially the same ingredients. Readers will find Satir's ideas timeless and thought provoking; indeed they may re-evaluate their own position and theories on therapy with couples.

Discover how issues of world war and peace relate to the dynamics of couples therapy in this thought-provoking book. In Peace, War, and Mental Health, couples therapists provide diverse views on the links between strengthening marriages and preventing and solving international disputes. Although the contributors vary in their approaches to this issue, a common theme is the belief that couples as well as countries need to build bridges, not walls, for healthy relationships and they need to strive to learn what others are really feeling, thinking, or needing underneath the defenses others exhibit.The contributing therapists in Peace, War, and Mental Health explore the various links between couples in conflict and nations at war. Chapters describe how prevention strategies used for couples in therapy may be applied to the well-being of the world as a whole and how significant change is possible through the involvement of only a small percentage of the population. Other chapters focus on specific tools for couples therapy such as outlines of the major tasks of relationship building and traps that mitigate against good relationship construction, a description of the nuts and bolts of conflict resolution, and the use of flashcards to help both members of the pair present his or her real feelings to the other. Some of the intriguing topics covered in this book include:the relationship between psychotherapy and spirituality and the paradox of individuals longing to belong since each is a part of the whole the role of gender on war and its potential impact on peace the failure of the humanistic movement societal attitudes linking domestic violence and large scale violence how the potential for resolution of differences in couples can be applied to peace among nations how prevention may be expanded to include the “mental health” of the whole world--Part V of an interview with Virginia SatirPeace, War, and Mental Health helps therapists look at international peace and couples therapy with new perspectives, a necessity in today’s rapidly changing family and world climate.

This inspiring book focuses on the spiritual aspect of psychotherapy with couples. Spirituality and Couples demonstrates that spirituality is an important factor in both the therapy process and the healing process. Chapters provide models to help therapists and counselors incorporate various aspects of spirituality into their therapy practices. They show the importance of a conscious attention to spirituality as a means of strengthening the effectiveness of individual therapy sessions as well as overall therapy efforts. Mental health professionals will find that including spiritual factors into their therapy will increase the effectiveness of their work as it opens new channels of communication between clients and therapists.Spirituality and Couples stresses that therapy should be viewed as a process between human beings rather than the use of a set of tools by a therapist on clients. Chapters cover a variety of topics including:an interview with Virginia Satir on the importance of not removing “heart and soul” from her work by reducing it to a set of techniques the need to find a new basis for enduring, enriching relationships the relevance of Buddhist meditation for the practice of couples therapy spiritual awakening in the couple relationship the sacredness of marriage spiritual connections between two people an analysis of Virginia Satir’s philosophy of treatment in terms of spirituality Mental health professionals, couples therapists, pastoral counselors, and clergy will find the information and strategies in this book interesting to read and helpful in their work.

“Amid these [world] changes is the growing conviction that human beings must evolve a new consciousness that places a high value on being human, that leads toward cooperation, that enables positive conflict resolution, and that recognizes our spiritual foundations. Can we accept as a given that the self of the therapist is an essential factor in the therapeutic process? If this turns out to be true, it will alter our way of teaching therapists as well as treating patients.” (Virginia Satir in The Use of Self in Therapy, The Haworth Press, Inc., 1987Virginia Satir, an internationally renowned educator and master therapist and a pioneer in the field of family therapy, altered the way therapists are taught and patients are treated. This landmark volume focuses on the important contributions that she made to the therapy profession. Written and edited by therapists who trained and worked closely with her, Virginia Satir: Foundational Ideas reflects her most basic ideas about the healing quality of respect for all people and the emphasis on the personal aspects of treatment rather than the technical. It also addresses the necessity of emotional honesty between the therapist and the patient and illustrates these therapists’impact on therapy as it is practiced today.The legacy left by Dr. Satir includes her profound insight into the behavior of human beings and the guidelines for the application of universal principles in such a way as to enhance human growth and unite individuals. Her impact on therapists around the world is apparent upon reading this triumphant volume. Scholars and practitioners address some of the fundamental tenets of therapy as developed by Dr. Satir and explain how they have integrated these basic foundations into their own practices. The highlights of her professional contributions that are discussed in this exhaustive volume include:the basic patterns of communication that are common to all people and the relationship of communication and self-esteem the triad concept and strategies for teaching people to exist in this basic unit of humankind in a healthy way the parts party and how this process for integrating various aspects of a person can be used with couples as well the model for change process and the ways in which it can be used with individuals, couples, and the world family reconstruction and the value of acting out the past with the therapist as guideVirginia Satir: Foundational Ideas is a sharp, clear focus on the person and work of this great master. It is necessary reading for all professionals around the world who seek to better understand the therapy process and the keys to its success.

“Amid these [world] changes is the growing conviction that human beings must evolve a new consciousness that places a high value on being human, that leads toward cooperation, that enables positive conflict resolution, and that recognizes our spiritual foundations. Can we accept as a given that the self of the therapist is an essential factor in the therapeutic process? If this turns out to be true, it will alter our way of teaching therapists as well as treating patients.” (Virginia Satir in The Use of Self in Therapy, The Haworth Press, Inc., 1987Virginia Satir, an internationally renowned educator and master therapist and a pioneer in the field of family therapy, altered the way therapists are taught and patients are treated. This landmark volume focuses on the important contributions that she made to the therapy profession. Written and edited by therapists who trained and worked closely with her, Virginia Satir: Foundational Ideas reflects her most basic ideas about the healing quality of respect for all people and the emphasis on the personal aspects of treatment rather than the technical. It also addresses the necessity of emotional honesty between the therapist and the patient and illustrates these therapists’impact on therapy as it is practiced today.The legacy left by Dr. Satir includes her profound insight into the behavior of human beings and the guidelines for the application of universal principles in such a way as to enhance human growth and unite individuals. Her impact on therapists around the world is apparent upon reading this triumphant volume. Scholars and practitioners address some of the fundamental tenets of therapy as developed by Dr. Satir and explain how they have integrated these basic foundations into their own practices. The highlights of her professional contributions that are discussed in this exhaustive volume include:the basic patterns of communication that are common to all people and the relationship of communication and self-esteem the triad concept and strategies for teaching people to exist in this basic unit of humankind in a healthy way the parts party and how this process for integrating various aspects of a person can be used with couples as well the model for change process and the ways in which it can be used with individuals, couples, and the world family reconstruction and the value of acting out the past with the therapist as guideVirginia Satir: Foundational Ideas is a sharp, clear focus on the person and work of this great master. It is necessary reading for all professionals around the world who seek to better understand the therapy process and the keys to its success.

This inspiring book focuses on the spiritual aspect of psychotherapy with couples. Spirituality and Couples demonstrates that spirituality is an important factor in both the therapy process and the healing process. Chapters provide models to help therapists and counselors incorporate various aspects of spirituality into their therapy practices. They show the importance of a conscious attention to spirituality as a means of strengthening the effectiveness of individual therapy sessions as well as overall therapy efforts. Mental health professionals will find that including spiritual factors into their therapy will increase the effectiveness of their work as it opens new channels of communication between clients and therapists.Spirituality and Couples stresses that therapy should be viewed as a process between human beings rather than the use of a set of tools by a therapist on clients. Chapters cover a variety of topics including:an interview with Virginia Satir on the importance of not removing “heart and soul” from her work by reducing it to a set of techniques the need to find a new basis for enduring, enriching relationships the relevance of Buddhist meditation for the practice of couples therapy spiritual awakening in the couple relationship the sacredness of marriage spiritual connections between two people an analysis of Virginia Satir’s philosophy of treatment in terms of spirituality Mental health professionals, couples therapists, pastoral counselors, and clergy will find the information and strategies in this book interesting to read and helpful in their work.

Couples Therapy, Multiple Perspectives is a springboard from which therapists may begin to answer such questions as What are the ingredients essential to good relationships? What are the ingredients essential to activity within the psychotherapeutic relationship? How can what therapists know regarding psychotherapy be combined to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts? Barbara Jo Brothers aids therapists in answering these and other questions about the basic ingredients, the common denominators, and the universal threads of work with couples from exploring the theories and methods of successful therapists.As there are many ways of looking at couples therapy, this volume encourages therapists to work cooperatively, not competitively, in developing clients’possibilities. Couples Therapy, Multiple Perspectives is intended to assist therapists working with couples achieve a broader view of their work and a richer range of choices in helping their clients. Every article, especially the two by master therapists Florence Kaslow and Maurizio Andolfi, moves readers toward a tapestry of therapeutic possibilities.Features of Couples Therapy, Multiple Perspectives include an in-depth look at the ingredients of a successful marriage, or, what makes marriages work for the long-term by Florence Kaslow; an article by Maurizio Andolfi, translated by Vincenzo DiNicola, which brings together an excellent integration of theories, including those of Bowen, Framo, and Whitaker. Andolfi describes a transgenerational approach to work with couples in crisis, with a case example of the value of doing family-of-origin work in the initial phase of therapy. In an interview segment with Virginia Satir (with Sheldon Starr, PhD, in 1985), she explores how all good therapy has essentially the same ingredients. Readers will find Satir's ideas timeless and thought provoking; indeed they may re-evaluate their own position and theories on therapy with couples.

Discover how issues of world war and peace relate to the dynamics of couples therapy in this thought-provoking book. In Peace, War, and Mental Health, couples therapists provide diverse views on the links between strengthening marriages and preventing and solving international disputes. Although the contributors vary in their approaches to this issue, a common theme is the belief that couples as well as countries need to build bridges, not walls, for healthy relationships and they need to strive to learn what others are really feeling, thinking, or needing underneath the defenses others exhibit.The contributing therapists in Peace, War, and Mental Health explore the various links between couples in conflict and nations at war. Chapters describe how prevention strategies used for couples in therapy may be applied to the well-being of the world as a whole and how significant change is possible through the involvement of only a small percentage of the population. Other chapters focus on specific tools for couples therapy such as outlines of the major tasks of relationship building and traps that mitigate against good relationship construction, a description of the nuts and bolts of conflict resolution, and the use of flashcards to help both members of the pair present his or her real feelings to the other. Some of the intriguing topics covered in this book include:the relationship between psychotherapy and spirituality and the paradox of individuals longing to belong since each is a part of the whole the role of gender on war and its potential impact on peace the failure of the humanistic movement societal attitudes linking domestic violence and large scale violence how the potential for resolution of differences in couples can be applied to peace among nations how prevention may be expanded to include the “mental health” of the whole world--Part V of an interview with Virginia SatirPeace, War, and Mental Health helps therapists look at international peace and couples therapy with new perspectives, a necessity in today’s rapidly changing family and world climate.

Here is a fascinating exploration of the powerful forces of attachment and attraction that determine the formation and styles of couples’relationships. What factors attract one person to another? What determines whether or not a healthy relationship is formed? As therapists know, there is much in this world that passes for love but is really the result of leftover dependency needs and unresolved attachment issues. Attraction and Attachment: Understanding Styles of Relationships examines issues of attachment in relationships, discusses the validity of the concept of codependency as one aspect of attachment, and explores various aspects of attraction.The contributing authors consider some of the many styles of relationships that are called love and examine some of the basic sources of attraction. Attraction and Attachment includes an in-depth evaluation of the concept of codependency, a review of the literature on attraction, methods for achieving equilibrium in sexual intimacy, and some of Virginia Satir’s insights on fear and making changes. Just a few of the specific topics explored in these important chapters include:the relationship of childhood attachment experiences and successful long-term marriages the influence of therapists’implicit philosophies on treatment options and their effectiveness in therapy a review of biological, psychological, and social psychological literature on mate selection a definition of codependency a study of the link between codependency and depression couples’acceptance of alternative treatment formatsPsychiatrists, psychologists, and clinical social workers, as well as substance abuse counselors and pastoral counselors, can discover new insights on attraction and attachment in this provocative book. All mental health professionals can find new ways of looking at the foundational elements of relationships that are invaluable to them in their work with couples.