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October, 2015 | SAGE Publications, Inc

Pragmatic Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy

Intimacy, Intuition, and the Search for Meaning


Jerrold Lee Shapiro - Santa Clara University, USA
384 pages | October, 2015 | SAGE Publications, Inc
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“This is a masterful primer on existential therapy that has been forged from the pen of a highly seasoned theorist, researcher, and practitioner.   In Pragmatic Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy: Intimacy, Intuition and the Search for Meaning, we gain the insight and personal experience of one who has lived and breathed the field for over 50 years—alongside some of the greatest practitioners of the craft, most notably Viktor Frankl.  This volume is superb for students interested in a broad and substantive overview of the field.”  
—Kirk Schneider, Columbia University  

Pragmatic Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy integrates concepts of positive psychology and strengths based therapy into existential therapy. Turning existential therapy on its head, this exciting, all-new title approaches the theory from a positive, rather than the traditional deficit model. Authored by a leading figure in existential therapy, Jerrold Lee Shapiro, the aim is to make existential therapy positive and easily accessible to a wide audience through a pragmatic, stage wise model. Shapiro expands on the work of Viktor Frankl and focuses on delivery to individuals and groups, men and women, and evidence based therapy. The key to his work is to help the client focus on resistance and to use it as a means of achieving therapeutic breakthroughs.  Filled with vignettes and rich case examples, the book is comprehensive, accessible, concrete, pragmatic and very human in connection between author and reader.

The Personal: How I became an Existential Therapist
Post-Grad Existential Experiences: Renewed Contact with Dr. Frankl
Finding Meaning in a Chance Meeting in Guam
Another Strange Site for Insight
True Existential Moments
The More Things Change...
The Professional Context
The Reach of Existential Approaches to Counseling and Psychotherapy
An Existential Orientation
Our Journey

Existential Philosophy
Philosophy Becomes Therapy
Divergent Existential Therapies
European Schools
European and American Existentialism
The Pragmatic Existential Orientation of this Book

Roots
Related Influences
A Brief Introduction to a Pragmatic Existential Therapy

Anxiety: The Engine of Change
Ahistorical Focus
Turning Report into Reality
Asocial Interventions
Working from Within
The Benefits of a Positive Psychology
Maximizing Therapeutic Effects
Existential Methods

A Brief History of Resistance and Healing
Resistance Across Theories
Resistance Between and Resistance Within
A Pragmatic Model of Dealing with Resistance in (Existential) Counseling and Therapy
Resistance Styles
The Cognitive External Style
The Affective External Style
The Cognitive Internal Style
The Affective Internal Style
The Cognitive Away Style
The Affective Away Style
Joining Must be Authentic
It Seems Counter-Intuitive. Why Does this Work?
Think France in the Early 1940's: Join the Resistance

The Nature of Human Communication
Meta-Communication
Communication and the State of the Receiver
The Therapy Context and Communication
Therapists' Processing Systems: The Use of Self
Linear Sources (Empirical/Observable Data)
Non-Linear (Intuitive) Sources of Data
The Value and Dangers of Self-Data
The Aware Therapist

Intra-Session Arc
The Trajectory of Therapy
A Four Phase Developmental Sequence

Some Realities for Clinicians
Preaching to the Choir: The "Hegemony" of CBT
"Include Me Out"
A Lack of Fit between Efficacy Studies and Existential-Humanistic Therapy
Psychotherapy: Art, Science or Hybrid
What is the Evidence for Existential Approaches?
A Curmudgeon's Perspective on Outcome Research
The Nose in Front of My Face
Implications

Unique Advantages of Multi-person Therapy
Unique Therapeutic Interventions
Characteristic Methods
Interactional Intimacy
When Groups are of Strangers
Effectiveness of Existential Multi-person Therapy
Why Existential Couple, Family and Group Therapy

Ethnicity, Culture, and Gender Differences
Counseling the Culturally Diverse
Religion as Culture
Socio-economic Status
When Cultures Clash
Gender and Sexual Orientation
Emic Redux
Is Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy Multi-Cultural?
Human Universals Across Cultures
Ideographic and Nomothetic

Developmental Stages
The Baby Boomer Generation: Finding Meaning, Facing Fears
Boomers in Therapy
Transition Issues
Transitions

Dana

KEY FEATURES:

  • This book explores existential psychotherapy, through three interrelated lenses:
    • A pragmatic form of existential counseling and therapy that blends both European philosophical influences with American pragmatism. It frames existential therapy as an encoding-inductive process and contrasts it to the deductive-decoding approach of other theoretical methods.
    • A more generic use of existential tenets in all forms of relationally-based psychotherapy.
    • A detailed five decade arc of the author’s personal discovery of the nature and implementation of counseling and psychotherapy.
  • Case studies and vignettes translate complex philosophical constructs into pragmatic approaches for counselors.  A look into the counselors’ minds shows their thoughts and decisions in detailed, real-time sessions with clients as well as providing a frank openness to exploring personal therapeutic errors and corrections.
  • A unique rationale and formulation is given for the understanding of resistance as a strength vs. a problem.  A six-fold classification of resistance methods and an approach to use each one for the client’s betterment is offered.
  • The author shows how therapists can be more receptive to data that emanate from both the client and internally-generated experiences, bringing to light the exploration of the therapists’ unconscious experiences and multi-sense comprehension. 
  • This is the only book that examines and summarizes in clear, understandable prose the basic assumptions of evidence-based research when applied to existential therapy.
  • Infrequently covered in most books, this one addresses the needs of clients during life transitions, such as from midlife to retirement. The book also allows readers to identify healthy (existential) concerns and to distinguish them from unhealthy (neurotic) issues and then provides a road map to dealing with both.