Getting Started

Getting Started provides answers to questions that confront all beginning therapists, such as How do I start? What do I say? What if the client challenges me? What if the client is silent? How do I deal with fees? What about confidentiality? How should I end the sessions? It also answers those fundamental general concerns, like How does psychotherapy work? How can I be helpful to my patients? Specifically, Getting Started includes an in-depth discussion of interviewing - the heart of the therapeutic process. History taking is made easy through the use of an uncomplicated, systematic technique. A clear chapter comparing friendship, supportive psychotherapy, and insight psychotherapy helps the reader to understand important differences in goals and techniques among these relationships. There are chapters on the first hour, the initial, middle, and ending phases of therapy, as well as special circumstances such as suicide, homicide, and psychopharmacology. There is a lucid introduction to dream interpretation and thorough discussions of transference and resistance. For the beginning practitioner as well as the more advanced therapist seeking a source for clarification and fine tuning, this book is an invaluable guide.