Böcker av James L. Poulton

In Suffering and Sacrifice in the Clinical Encounter, the authors identify the ways in which some patients seek to create what Freud termed a 'private religion' and unconsciously substitute sacrificial enactments of scapegoat surrogates to protect them against the pain of separation, mourning, and loss of primary figures of attachment. They investigate the function of sacrifice and its relationship to the breakdown of psychic structure and the development of manic defenses and pathological narcissism. Such treatments are complex, the 'reversed roles' of victim and perpetrator central to the sacrificial process when enacted in therapy can trigger feelings of shame, guilt and inadequacy in the therapist. Perverse, vengeful, and sadistic transference distortions are explored to enable the therapist to appreciate the true nature of the patient's hidden traumatic experience, with the necessity for the working-through of genuine separation and grieving highlighted. Useful methods are detailed to counter the tendency to become overly active and inappropriately involved when working with patients who have deadened their desire to improve. This book is unique in utilising the dynamic concepts of the effects of trauma and sacrifice, the role of the scapegoat, and the distinctions between the experience of pain and the accomplishment of suffering in order to develop a foundational understanding of such patients. It is a must-read for all practising and trainee therapists.

During the course of psychoanalytic psychotherapy with couples, the practicing clinician is commonly faced with problems and issues that at times can seem nearly insoluble. In Object Relations and Relationality in Couple Therapy: Exploring the Middle Ground, James L. Poulton, PhD, surveys those problems and offers practical suggestions for their resolution. Through the use of extensive clinical material from couple cases, each chapter presents a specific issue, reviews the theoretical background that is essential for understanding it, and offers detailed illustrations of effective clinical interventions.The issues addressed by this book include the following: vthe influence of intergenerational trauma on the coupleΓÇÖs functioning; vdynamics of violence and sacrifice within the couple; vthe narcissistic couple and disillusionment with the therapeutic process; vintensification of emotional stress that results when both partners share unconscious anxieties; vappropriate and inappropriate uses of the therapistΓÇÖs self-disclosure; vintegration of cultural issues in couple therapy; vnegotiating individual and shared transferences in couple therapy;vthe place of truth and certainty in the coupleΓÇÖs capacity to heal.Object Relations and Relationality in Couple Therapy: Exploring the Middle Ground draws upon leading-edge innovations in both theory and technique to offer creative solutions to the common dilemmas in couple therapy. In current discussions of psychoanalytic treatment, two distinct but interrelated theoretical approaches predominate: object relations and relational theory. This book emphasizes the continuities and commonalities between these two approaches, particularly in their application to the treatment of couples, and argues that modern relational theories can be read as clinically useful elaborations of similar intuitions that have already been developing in the object relations oeuvre. The chapters in this book illustrate that there is a firm middle ground in which ideas and techniques from both theories can be integrated into a consistent therapeutic approach that provides a broad foundation for conceptualizing couple interactions and for designing interventions that facilitate the coupleΓÇÖs growth.