Advancing Psychotherapy for the Next Generation: Humanizing Mental Health Policy and Practice

This book brings together a global community of mental health professionals to offer an impassioned defence of relationship-based depth psychotherapy.

Expressing ideas that are integral to the mission of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN), the authors demonstrate a shared vision of a world where this therapy is accessible to all communities. They also articulate the difficulties created by the current mental health diagnostic system and differing conceptualizations of mental distress, the shortsightedness of evidence-based care and research, and the depreciation of depth therapy by many stakeholders. The authors thoughtfully elucidate the crucial importance of therapies of depth, insight, and relationship in the repertoire of mental health treatment and speak to the implications of PsiAN’s mission both now and in the future.

With a distinguished international group of authors and a clear focus on determining a future direction for psychotherapy, this book is essential reading for all psychotherapists.

Linda L. Michaels is the chair and co-founder of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN), consulting editor of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, clinical associate faculty of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, and fellow of the Lauder Institute Global MBA program. She is a psychologist with a private practice in Chicago.

Tom Wooldridge is chair in the Department of Psychology at Golden Gate University as well as a psychoanalyst and board-certified, licensed psychologist. He has published several books and numerous journal articles and book chapters on topics such as eating disorders, masculinity, technology, and psychoanalytic treatment. He is on the Scientific Advisory Council of the National Eating Disorders Association, faculty at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC) and the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (NCSPP), an assistant clinical professor at UCSF’s Medical School, and has a private practice in Berkeley, CA.

Nancy Burke is an associate clinical professor, Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University, past president, board member and faculty at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, vice-chair of EMHS-NFP, and secretary of ISPS-US and ABAPsa. She is the originating founder of PsiAN. She maintains a private practice of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and consultation in Evanston IL.

Janice R. Muhr is the treasurer and co-founder of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN) and clinical associate faculty at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. She is a psychologist with a psychotherapy practice in the Chicago area for over 40 years.