Del Loewenthal

This book is an introduction to critical existential-analytic psychotherapy. It has been written as a response to what is considered to be a crisis point in what is currently taken as psychotherapeutic knowledge. A focus point is the relentless move in psychotherapy and psychotherapy trainings towards evidence-based practice. It is suggested that such developments can be usefully challenged if we are to consider: Can starting with theory be a form of violence? Should a primacy be given to practice? Does reliance on empirical research mean we start from the wrong place? From a critical existential-analytic psychotherapeutic perspective, the answer to all three of these questions is ‘yes’. This perspective, therefore, is fundamentally different from what psychological therapists are increasingly purporting to do, and further challenges other current notions from diagnosis and treatment to dominant discourses in psychology. The aim of this book is to consider some ways in which the psychological therapies might be able to move away from the crisis mainly caused by what is currently wrongly being understood in terms of ‘evidence-based practice’ as the nature of psychotherapeutic knowledge. Instead, it is proposed that primacy be given to: practice, considering theories having implications rather than applications, and privileging thoughtfulness with notions of research being seen more as cultural practices. This book is based on a special issue of the European Journal of Psychotherapy& Counselling.

Some Implications for Practices, Theories and Research

Critical Existential-Analytic Psychotherapy

Robert Snell

This volume is a primer which takes the reader through the ideas of the most important post-modern thinkers, giving a clear summary of the essential points of their ideas and how they relate to current and future psychotherapy theory and practice.

A Critical Reader

Post-modernism for Psychotherapists

This book is for those interested in providing psychotherapy and counselling for young adults, and those who wish to bring a therapeutic sensibility to working with this client group. Two main questions are addressed: What are the implications of providing a therapeutic ethos for young adults; and what, if any, additional training might be required for psychotherapists and counsellors working with this client group? In so doing this book explores what has too long been seen, at least for childhood, to be an urgent need for a therapeutic ethos. Such an ethos is to bring both therapeutic and educational sensibilities to bear on preventative and curative approaches to issues of young adults’ well-being. The chapters in this book, except one, were originally published in the European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling.

Therapy and Therapeutic Ethos

Toxic Young Adulthood

"A layman will no doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by ‘mere’ words. He will feel that he is being asked to believe in magic. And he will not be so very wrong for the words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing more than watered down magic." (Freud) This book provides further developments of such ideas, including Freud’s uncanny, Jung’s synchronicity, Daniels’ transpersonal, Clarke’s mindfulness and Sollod’s anomalous experiences. The paranormal could be seen as being fundamental to the psychological therapies. Occasionally a writer brings this potential to our attention but questions of science, evidence-based practice, etc. continue to dominate. Yet does this continue to lead to ‘what’s denied running even more wild’? Further, might the lessening of the paranormal be primarily what is lost, the aura, through the increase in internet therapy? The question of the paranormal and the psychological therapies continues to persist, not only for psychoanalysis but the psychological therapies in general. This book attempts to address that. The chapters in this book, apart from a new introduction and a new chapter, were originally published in the European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling.

Some Implications for Psychological Therapies

What is Paranormal?

The digital age has brought about a world-wide evolution of phototherapy and therapeutic photography. This book provides both a foundation in phototherapy and therapeutic photography and describes the most recent developments. Phototherapy and Therapeutic Photography in a Digital Age is divided into three sections: In the first, an introduction and overviews from different perspectives; in the second, approaches and contexts, including phototherapy, re-enactment phototherapy, community phototherapy, self-portraiture, family photography. This is followed by a conclusion looking at the future of phototherapy and therapeutic photography in terms of theory, practice and research. The book is for anyone interested in the therapeutic use of photographs. It will be of particular interest to psychological therapists and especially psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists and art therapists, as well as photographers and others wishing to explore further the use of photographs therapeutically within their existing practices.

Phototherapy and Therapeutic Photography in a Digital Age

Ottar Ness

Billy Hardy

The therapeutic state is a pervasive set of practices and ideologies which have been ever present in the twentieth century. This book of international contributors is about bringing into question many of these reified, dogmatic ideologies. Classifications, diagnosis and the treatments have been shown to be ineffectual for many populations across the globe, but still we persist with redundant, defunct methods and techniques. Why? Because, as some would suggest, we have nothing better. The danger is that the state is taking away one of the last confidential spaces for people to allow thoughts to come to them has never been greater. This book invites readers to think beyond the state and its therapeutics. It will be relevant to many professions, professionals, service users, families, survivors and organisations; and those who are looking for something different. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling.

Beyond the Therapeutic State

How do cultural changes such as the increasing lustful possibilities of our liquid modernity affect ‘romantic’ values as psychotherapists and counsellors - and, in turn, affect how they work through their clients’ relationships? Do they embody values from a previous era that are inappropriate for the era we are in now, which some term ‘post-romantic’? For example, do they really privilege monogamous relationships? There again, do those psychotherapists who advocate polygamy really want others to legitimize their own desire to have affairs? How wary should one be of accepting such prevailing theories as Freud’s nuclear family romance and his ‘ordinary unhappiness’? Is anyone value-free regarding romanticism/post-romanticism and should they be? Is ‘to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part’ still an ideal worth working towards or more an ideological imprisonment? This book seeks to explore recent research on how notions of romanticism and post-romanticism affect therapeutic practices. Love, Sex and Psychotherapy in a Post-Romantic Era is a significant new contribution to psychotherapy, and will be a great resource for prospective and current clients, trainee and professional therapists, academics, researchers, and advanced students of Psychology, Psychotherapy, Philosophy and Human Behaviour. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling.

Love, Sex and Psychotherapy in a Post-Romantic Era

Del Loewenthal's career has been wide-ranging, spanning existentialism, psychoanalysis, critical psychotherapy, humanism, postmodernism, phototherapy, cognitive behaviour therapy and childhood studies. This collection combines new and recent works with earlier writings, drawing together his outstanding research and contribution to existential theory, practice and research. Containing chapters and papers chosen by Loewenthal himself, the book is divided into the following sections: • Existentialism after postmodernism and the psychological therapies • Practice, ideologies and politics: Now you see it, now you don’t! • Practice, practice issues and the nature of psychotherapeutic knowledge • Practice and theory: Implications not applications • Thoughtful practice and research • Conclusion: Hopefully unending, continually changing and astonishing After an introduction to the overall book, each section is accompanied by the author's exploration of his further thoughts on the pieces, his own subsequent learning and his comments on developments in the field since the time of writing. Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling after Postmodernism will be inspiring reading for psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, counsellors, other mental health professionals in general, and existential therapists in particular.

Del Loewenthal

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