The Handbook of Narrative and Psychotherapy: Practice, Theory and Research

"As no other volume brings together original contributions in narrative and psychotherapy from practitioners, researchers, theoreticians from around the world, the Handbook of Narrative and Psychotherapy should be purchased by libraries that support the education, practice, and research of professionals in the "helping" sciences."
--E-STREAMS

"This volume is an extremely valuable resource. It tells the fascinating story of the centrality of storying in human lives and their counsel ― including the history of the narrative turn in psychology and the newest developments in theory and research. I recommend it most highly."

            --Michael J. Mahoney, author of Human Change Processes and Constructive
                                                                                                              Psychotherapy

"The growing interest in constructivist approaches, nontraditional approaches towards research, and specifically narrative as an organizing concept makes it an extremely timely book. The contributors look like a who′s who in the area . . . . a well planned book, with the right organization and the right people."

                              --Jeremy Safran, The New School for Social Research, New York City

"Overall, clinicians will find this book valuable because they will be introduced to different approaches to using narrative ideas in therapy, with sufficient detail and case history material to make the ideas come alive. Theoreticians will get sophisticated discussions of the nature of narrative as it relates to the nature of the person, personality development, and personality change. And finally, researchers will get ′state of the field′ knowledge of narrative research on therapy and narrative methods for doing research. Overall, this is an important and exciting book on a hot topic, filled with new ideas, sophisticated research, and case examples. If you wanted to know about this important development in the field of psychology in general, and psychotherapy in particular, this is the place to come."

                                                                            --Art Bohart, Saybrook Graduate School

"With an excellent cast of characters, both new and old, Angus and McLeod′s ambitious anthology of current thought on narrative and therapy bridges the generations of scholars and therapists within this tradition, creating a lively community of the widely varying voices. Narrative is a truly integrative element of psychotherapy, applying with equal force to cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, experiential and family systems approaches. As such, this book successfully lays out the newly emergent approach, and points out new opportunities for integration at the levels of both theory and practice, with implications that reach far beyond clinical assessment and treatment, to the nature of self and culture. This book maps the territory of narrative and psychotherapy for the next generation of therapeutic narratologists."

                                                                        --Robert Elliott, Ph.D., University of Toledo

The field of narrative-informed therapy began nearly a decade ago and has now matured to the point where a significant reference work is both timely and appropriate. The Handbook of Narrative and Psychotherapy is the first work to draw together theorists and practitioners representing a diverse range of approaches to describe and detail assessment and intervention strategies focusing on client story-telling and story reconstruction to promote positive change in clients. It aims to bring together multiple approaches to promote a dialogue among differing narrative traditions and synthesize a more integrated understanding of client story-telling processes in psychotherapy. The editors have achieved a balance between practice, applied research findings, and background theory.  

Psychotherapy practitioners and researchers in social work, counseling, nursing, and psychiatry will find this handbook of immense value. Faculty, graduate students, and librarians in clinical psychology, counseling, social work, and psychiatry departments will also find this an ideal addition to their courses and collections. No other volume brings together original contributions in narrative and psychotherapy from practitioners and researchers from around the world.

Key Features: 

• Contains an international "who′s-who" of contributing authors 
• Highlights and integrates the various approaches and dimensions of narrative therapy, including the contributions of narrative expression to psychotherapy practice, theories of personality and self development, and research strategies assessing narrative and client self change 
• Includes therapy session examples and case materials that demonstrate narrative interventions in action 
• Presents clear and consistent professional guidelines in each chapter

Lynne Angus, Ph.D., C.Psych. is a Professor of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and is a past president of both the International Society for Psychotherapy Research and North American Chapter, Society for Psychotherapy Research. Dr. Angus has an active psychotherapy practice in which she specializes in narrative-focused experiential psychotherapy. She is clinical supervisor for brief therapy treatments at the East End Community Health Clinic in Toronto. Her research interests include the development of a narrative processes model and an assessment interview and coding system for psychotherapy discourse. She has published several papers on the analysis of metaphor themes in psychotherapy sessions. The Narrative Processes Coding System has been translated into 2 languages and research collaborations in Finland, Portugal, and Spain are underway. Current grant-supported efforts include the empirical analysis of narrative change in the experiential treatment of depression as well as the systematic analysis of narrative coherence in psychotherapy sessions. She has published over 20 publications in research journals and psychotherapy-related texts.

In addition to their academic work, both Angus and McLeod are practicing clinicians who see clients, train and supervise clinical psychologists in psychotherapy and counseling skills and are engaged in psychotherapy process and outcome research. In their work, they attempt to fully integrate theory and research into practice, and they believe that each component of the process―practice, theory, evaluation/research―inform each other.

John McLeod has held appointments in universities in the UK, New Zealand and Italy, and is currently Professor of Counselling at the Institute for Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy, Dublin, and Professor of Psychology, University of Oslo. He is committed to promoting the relevance of research as a means of informing therapy practice and improving the quality of services that are available to clients, and has received an award from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy for his exceptional contribution to research. His writing has influenced a generation of trainees in the field of counselling, counselling psychology and psychotherapy, and his books are widely adopted on training programmes across the world.