Tales from Family Therapy

You often see books on theoretical approaches and new interventions in therapy, but you rarely, if ever, find a book where therapists discuss their personal reactions to and views of the therapy they offer. In this amazing volume, Tales from Family Therapy: Life-Changing Clinical Experiences, psychologists, psychotherapists, and marriage and family counselors come together to share their unique experiences in therapy sessions and how they've learned that often the clients know more than they do! As you will see, and as these therapists reveal, sometimes all the top-notch and most innovative theories in the world won't help a client in distress.Tales from Family Therapy isn't just about therapists learning a lesson or two from their clients. It's about compassion, healing, being taken by surprise, thinking on your toes, and encouraging people to believe in their strengths--not just their weaknesses. These stories represent to the authors some of the most special, most rewarding, and most puzzling moments in all their years of therapy. They invite you to share in their recollections and discussions of: - the power of speaking - accepting, respecting, and working with the realities clients bring - the importance of first impressions in counseling - how personal narratives develop through relationship - coloring outside the lines of the dominant culture - helping clients determine when rocking the boat is needed - listening to your clients and not just your theories - developing the self-of-therapist In the therapy room anything can happen, and as Tales from Family Therapy shows, anything does. Graduate students, counselors, licensed therapists, family educators, and family sciences professionals, as well as lay readers, will find this insightful book a helpful forum where the struggles, doubts, and triumphs of psychotherapy are revealed to encourage and inspire those who participate in the therapeutic process.

Thorana S Nelson, Terry S Trepper, Frank N Thomas

Contents About the Editors - Contributors - Series Editor's Comments - Foreword - Preface - Acknowledgments - Therapy with Families - Courting the Unknown in a Cross-Cultural Context - A Game of Snakes-and-Ladders - From Not Knowing, to Knowing, to Not Knowing, to Shared Knowing - Interesting Moments in Psychotherapy - Hysterical or Historical? - Clients Do the Craziest Things. . . Like Prove Therapists Wrong - "I'm Exercising as Fast as I Can!" Driving Missy Crazy - The Lesson of Courage - Act III: A Continuing Story - Therapy with Difficult Cases - Understanding the Sandwich Man - Voices of Wisdom: The Reality of Delusions and the Usefulness of Hallucinations - A Bitter Pill - The Extra Mile: Therapy in a Truck Stop - The Jockey Who Couldn't Frown - How Caron Kept Her Feet Moving - Developing the Self of the Therapist - Coloring Within the Lines: The Tale of a Buddhist, Lesbian Family Therapy Professor - The Kaleidoscope of a Retiree - Index