Bruce A. Stevens – författare

Schema Therapy for Couples represents the first practitioner guide to detail effective Schema Therapy techniques in couple and relationship therapy. Shows how the distinctive features of ST make it ideal for addressing the cognitive and emotion-focused problems typical in couple relationshipsPresents and integrates a series of innovative tools and interventions such as Schema Therapy with Needs versus Wants, Mode Cycle Clash Cards, limited re-parenting visualization, and chair workAuthored by an international team of experts in couples therapy and Schema Therapy

Schema Therapy (ST) was developed to treat patients with complex disorders, especially personality disorders, with a powerful new set of interventions. Personality disorders, as well as more general problems stemming from early experience and addressed by schema therapy, are a key factor in many disturbed relationships, and as a result ST is now increasingly used for couples work. By dealing effectively with the past, ST offers a unique way to approach and address present difficulties in relationships, Couples who understand their individual patterns of thinking and behavior tend to find that their relationships make much more sense.Breaking Negative Relationship Patterns is a readable, practical resource containing a wealth of self-help exercises that schema therapists can recommend or give to their patients. It is the ideal resource for couples undergoing schema therapy, ­and can also serve as an accessible self-help guide for those experiencing relationship difficulties. The authors offer a complete ST-based model for understanding complex personal problems, along with couple-specific adaptations of core ST interventions such as limited reparenting, imagery re-scripting and behavioral pattern breaking.

First things are spiritually and theologically important. Before Belief explores the precognitive human experience of transcendence, illuminating how such foundational experiences are formative of attachment relationships with people and ultimately with God. The book proposes an implicit learning model rather than rely on Freud’s or Jung’s understanding of the unconscious, with a goal of recovering unconscious spiritual learning. Once discovered and put into language, early learning needs to be tested and integrated into life experience and expressed in committed living. The theories examined and advanced in the work are also carried through in practical case studies that demonstrate the pastoral and clinical salience of understanding and connecting people to those grounding experiences.

We are multistoried; each story contributing to who we are – the storied self. A number of undeveloped stories are identified in this book. This includes the hidden story before language. Others include the lazy story, the trauma story, the messy story, the body story, the problem story and the dark story. The God story brings the spiritual realm into focus. The challenge in spiritual care is to help people find an integrative deep story which can be re-authored with new and exciting possibilities. This book draws on the insights of narrative gerontology for a natural, engaging and more comprehensive spiritual care of the aged – one that results in psychological and spiritual growth. This is a unique idea which will challenge the way we think about pastoral care.