Vulnerable Moments: Deepening the Therapeutic Process / Edition 1

by Martin S. Livingston

Overview

The therapeutic process requires both the willingness to be vulnerable and the capacity to tolerate it despite the risks involved. Martin S. Livingston reminds us that it is not just the patient who needs to take these risks, but the therapist as well. Those clinicians who avoid vulnerability via the protective detachment of their professional role cannot engage in a fully responsive, emotionally present way to the fragile, often fleeting, moments when both anxiety and openness to change are greatest. Livingston's focus on narcissistic vulnerability and its power to transform in psychotherapy comes alive in the book's abundant and vivid clinical examples. Material from individual, group, and couples treatment demonstrates how attention to the vicissitudes of this important aspect of the therapeutic process can have a profound impact. This is a deeply felt and beautifully written tribute to the bravery of patients and therapists alike in their very human search for connection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765703101
Publisher:	Aronson, Jason Inc.
Publication date:	06/01/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	299
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Martin S. Livingston, Ph.D., is a training analyst, faculty member, and supervisor at several psychoanalytic institutes in New York City. He is also co-chair of the Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	vii
1.	Identity, Vulnerability, and Change: An Introduction	1
2.	Tenderness, Vulnerability, and Selfobject Relationships	11
3.	The Therapist's Attitudes and Interventions	45
4.	The Therapist's Vulnerability	77
5.	Issues of Self-Disclosure	103
6.	Vulnerable Moments in Couple Therapy	121
7.	Vulnerable Moments in Group Therapy	183
8.	Dreams: The Royal Road to the Emergence of the Vulnerable Self	217
9.	An Afterword	279
	References	285
	Index	295

Editorial Reviews

Martin Livingston has drawn attention to the importance of experiencing and exploring vulnerable moments in treatment. In this clear, readable, and engaging book, he shows how working with vulnerable moments can be facilitated, thereby deepening the therapeutic process and enhancing the experience of intimacy. Through his extensive clinical examples, Livingston makes an important contribution by examining vulnerable moments in individual, couples, and group psychotherapy.

University of Denver

In this book Martin S. Livingston displays his skillful deployment of self-psychology in the clinical realms of individual, couple, and group psychotherapy. In the extensive, vivid case examples he sensitively shows how he combines theory and treatment. This is a book by a master of his craft from which I have gained a new perspective on my own work. Clearly written, this will be of value to all psychotherapists who want to grow in their knowledge of self-psychology.

Malcolm Pines

Martin Livingston has drawn attention to the importance of experiencing and exploring vulnerable moments in treatment. In this clear, readable, and engaging book, he shows how working with vulnerable moments can be facilitated, thereby deepening the therapeutic process and enhancing the experience of intimacy. Through his extensive clinical examples, Livingston makes an important contribution by examining vulnerable moments in individual, couples, and group psychotherapy.

Peter Buirski

In this book Martin S. Livingston displays his skillful deployment of self-psychology in the clinical realms of individual, couple, and group psychotherapy. In the extensive, vivid case examples he sensitively shows how he combines theory and treatment. This is a book by a master of his craft from which I have gained a new perspective on my own work. Clearly written, this will be of value to all psychotherapists who want to grow in their knowledge of self-psychology.--Malcolm Pines, M.D., former president, International Association of Group Psychotherapy

Martin Livingston has drawn attention to the importance of experiencing and exploring vulnerable moments in treatment. In this clear, readable, and engaging book, he shows how working with vulnerable moments can be facilitated, thereby deepening the therapeutic process and enhancing the experience of intimacy. Through his extensive clinical examples, Livingston makes an important contribution by examining vulnerable moments in individual, couples, and group psychotherapy.--Peter Buirski, Ph.D., University of Denver

From the Publisher

"To succeed in therapy, patients must allow themselves to be vulnerable, and they need their therapist to respond to, and share in, that vulnerability." Livingston explores the nature, importance and transforming experiences of vulnerability—the lowering of an individual's usual characterological defenses—in the psychotherapeutic process, for both patients and therapists. Examples from individual, group, and couples treatment are used "to demonstrate how a more enlightened attention can be paid to the vicissitudes of this important aspect of the therapeutic process." Livingston is a training analyst, faculty member and supervisor at several psychoanalytic institutes in New York City, and bases his text on 40 years of clinical and teaching experience. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)