Sexual Attraction in Therapy: Clinical Perspectives on Moving Beyond the Taboo - A Guide for Training and Practice - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1118674332 ISBN 13: 9781118674338

Publisher: *Wiley-Blackwell, 2014

Synopsis

Sexual Attraction in Therapy presents new findings from multiple perspectives into the complex phenomenon of sexual attraction in therapy. Detailed clinical examples and strategies from expert contributors demonstrate how therapists can engage with sexual attraction, when it arises, in positive ways that facilitate client progress and ensure appropriate professional conduct. 

• Challenges practitioners to think about sexual attraction as a normal dynamic developing through the unique intimacy of the therapy encounter
• Presents new findings from research to enrich understanding of the lived experience of therapists and how they confront, avoid, make use of the process of sexual attraction
• Provides clinical examples to highlight common challenges faced by practitioners, the strategies they use to overcome them and how they normalize the ‘taboo’ of sexual attraction to make positive use of it in therapy
• Makes an important contribution to current literature on professional practice, an area of increasing importance as more emphasis is placed on issues of ethics, ongoing supervision and appropriate professional conduct
• Expert contributors include Doris McIlwain, Michael Worrell, John Sommers-Flanagan and Martin Milton

 

 

About this title

About the Author

Maria Luca is a Reader in Psychotherapy and Counselling Psychology, Senior Research Fellow, and Head of the Reflections Research Centre in the School of Psychotherapy and Counselling Psychology, Regent’s University London, UK. She has extensive clinical experience as a psychotherapist in the NHS and runs a private practice in London. She is a UKCP accredited psychotherapist, a BACP senior accredited counselling supervisor, and editor of The Therapeutic Frame in the Clinical Context: Integrative Perspectives (2004).

From the Back Cover

Sexual Attraction in Therapy presents new and original theoretical and clinical insights from multiple perspectives into working with the complex phenomenon of sexual attraction in therapy. Challenging practitioners to think about sexual attraction as a normal dynamic developing through the unique intimacy of the therapy encounter, it encourages readers to treat sexual attraction as an opportunity for deeper work, rather than as a dread. This text fills an important gap in the market by moving beyond psychoanalytic theories of transference and countertransference, and discussing views on theory, training, practice and research from relational/integrative, cognitive behavioural, acceptance and commitment, existential, phenomenological, psychoanalytic and systemic approaches.

The contributors to the text – including Doris MIlwain, Michael Worrell, John Sommers-Flanagan and Martin Milton - are highly experienced psychologists and psychotherapists with international reputations as theorists on the erotic in clinical practice. Illustrated with detailed case material and strategies for managing sexual attraction, this book aims to stimulate understanding and dialogue by bringing theory and practice from a variety of perspectives together in one comprehensive volume.

From the Inside Flap

Sexual Attraction in Therapy presents new and original theoretical and clinical insights from multiple perspectives into working with the complex phenomenon of sexual attraction in therapy. Challenging practitioners to think about sexual attraction as a normal dynamic developing through the unique intimacy of the therapy encounter, it encourages readers to treat sexual attraction as an opportunity for deeper work, rather than as a dread. This text fills an important gap in the market by moving beyond psychoanalytic theories of transference and countertransference, and discussing views on theory, training, practice and research from relational/integrative, cognitive behavioural, acceptance and commitment, existential, phenomenological, psychoanalytic and systemic approaches.

The contributors to the text – including Doris MIlwain, Michael Worrell, John Sommers-Flanagan and Martin Milton - are highly experienced psychologists and psychotherapists with international reputations as theorists on the erotic in clinical practice. Illustrated with detailed case material and strategies for managing sexual attraction, this book  aims to stimulate understanding and dialogue by bringing theory and practice from a variety of perspectives together in one comprehensive volume.

Edition details

• Publisher: *Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1118674332
• ISBN 13: 9781118674338
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Luca Maria