Transforming Negative Reactions to Clients: From Frustration to Compassion

Therapists are vulnerable to a wide range of uncomfortable emotions during the practice of psychotherapy. How a therapist manages these reactions has important consequences for the process and outcome of treatment. Spearheaded by three renowned scholars on psychotherapeutic practice, this edited volume will help therapists — established and novice — understand and constructively use the wide range of interfering feelings they experience in their working alliance with challenging patients.

Organised into three major parts, the chapters in Transforming Negative Reactions to Clients explore therapists negative reactions across major therapeutic approaches and across various disorders, including borderline personality disorder. The concluding chapter contains practice and training recommendations.

Geared toward practising therapists and supervisors who help novice psychotherapists deal with the potential harmful emotions they may experience in their training, Transforming Negative Reactions to Clients draws on integrative and relational psychotherapy, research on the therapeutic alliance, and social psychology research on the reattribution of motive.