Interpersonal Reconstructive Therapy: An Integrative Personality Based Treatment For Complex Cases

Description

What can be done to help those persons who consistently do not respond to therapeutic interventions, despite significant suffering and repeated attempts to seek treatment? Filling a crucial need, this book presents a powerful evidence-based approach to working with individuals with severe, treatment-refractory conditions, including but not limited to personality disorders.

Leading scientist-practitioner Lorna Smith Benjamin provides both a comprehensive introduction to interpersonal reconstructive therapy (IRT) and clear, step-by-step guidelines for practice. At the heart of IRT is a clearly explained method of case conceptualization that links presenting symptoms to longstanding patterns in interpersonal relationships: targets the motivational factors that maintain current difficulties: helps therapist and client collaborate to stay focused on key therapeutic goals: and facilitates the learning of new patterns through a variety of carefully planned interventions. Solidly grounded in theory and research, the volume is illustrated with rich clinical examples that bring core principles to life.

'A work of impeccable scholarship in which therapeutic complexities are assessed clearly and incisively, employing a set of concise principles. Benjamin brilliantly conceptualizes her groundbreaking model and illustrates this authoritative guide with fascinating clinical examples. With her well-articulated method of social structural analysis, she demonstrates a tool - a lens, as she terms it - that codifies and links biographic history and a patient's presenting problem. Elucidating her approach impressively and persuasively, Benjamin has written an illuminating text for thinkers, therapists, psychiatric residents, and clinical graduate students.' --- Theodore Millon, PhD, DSc, Institute for Advanced Studies in Personology and Psychopathology, Coral Gables, FL