*Answers everyone's Now what do I do? question.
*Friendly, approachable, but serious package of advice to get new therapists off to the right start.
*What you didn't learn in grad school: consent, compliance, resistance, impasses, and the popular billing and scheduling!
*Organized to follow the course of therapy for ease of use.
. - ....this book is a must-read for every novice psychotherapist, as well as for psychotherapy supervisors and instructors. Even experienced therapists would likely benefit from the examples discussed in this book as a 'refresher' for practical examples of techniques to apply in common clinical encounters. I applaud Drs. Bender and Messner for writing such a relevant, practical, and needed guide for novice therapists. --Journal of Psychiatric Practice, 11/21/2003ff Drs. Bender and Messner decided to correct the lack of a good teaching text for the beginning therapist. ...[Their] book clearly fulfils its goals to teach the basic steps, the nuts and bolts, and to be a guidebook rather than a cookbook. It is wonderfully written, comprehensive, detailed, yet very practical and useful. The wealth and quality of therapist-patient dialogues is a great feature....All practicing clinicians could benefit from reviewing issues presented in this volume. I also suggest that this book become a required reading in residency training programs. --Annals of Clinical Psychiatry, 11/21/2003
I. The Consultation
1. First Contact
2. The First Moments
3. Initiating an Alliance and Assessing Safety
4. Enhancing the Therapeutic Alliance and Eliciting History
5. Collecting a Psychosocial History and Screening for Common Psychological Disorders
6. Formulating a Treatment Plan
II. Frame and Variations
7. The Frame
8. Setting the Fee and Billing
9. Telephone Calls: From Dependencies to Emergencies
10. No-Shows, Late Arrivals, and Late Departures
11. Confidentiality and Its Limits
III. Chemistry
12. Substance Abuse
13. Integrating Psychopharmacology with Psychotherapy
IV. Therapeutic Dilemmas
14. Management of Impasses
15. Empathic Lapses
16. Transference and Countertransference
17. Termination