Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
A review of
Reviewed by
Brian H. Stagner
spotlight of treatment.
Theoretical Underpinnings
Treatment Strategies
therapy because of the detail with which the many techniques are
explicated. For example, several strategies are presented for defensive
restructuring (interventions involving the intrapsychic triangle). Each
strategy may be expected to mobilize different levels of anxiety. Thus,
supporting defenses or invitations to intimacy produce relatively low
anxiety, demonstration or intensification of defenses mobilizes
moderate anxiety, and confrontation of defenses elicits high anxiety.
The theoretical background of each of these strategies is illuminated,
and in many cases, brief case material supplements the discussion.
This analysis is thoughtful, succinct, and immediately applicable. The
material on restructuring the intrapsychic system will probably be
familiar to most therapists as it builds on well-established principles
from psychodynamic, cognitive, and pharmaceutical interventions.
Practitioners will like this book. The clinical nuts and bolts lend
conceptual guidance in selecting strategies and choosing tactics in the
treatment room. For the clarity and usefulness of these sections, this
book will be useful to both new and seasoned therapists. At the
theoretical level, this book is far more ambitious than the title
suggests. Although it does have a very strong foundation in relational
psychotherapy, it attempts integration far beyond the relational level of
analysis. The most theoretical sections are more evocative than
prescriptive. Readers will judge for themselves whether Magnavita has
successfully constructed the scaffold of a unified approach or has
simply identified the parts. Some (including this reader) may feel that
the breathless flyover of all those concepts covers too much to master
in the space available and wonder whether the unification is more
apparent than substantive, but this is churlish. What is important is
that the author is making a serious effort to think like this. This book is
about bringing psychotherapy back to richness of theory and
reconnecting practitioners with the theoretical heritage of personology
while integrating new discoveries from more reductionistic approaches.
In many places, this aspiration is fleshed out with well-specified
conceptualizations and specific clinical strategies, thereby providing
encouragement that the grand project of unification may ultimately be
possible.
References