1st Edition
A Humane Vision of Clinical Psychology, Volume 2 Explorations into the Practice of Compassionate Psychotherapy
The purpose of A Humane Vision of Clinical Psychology, Volume II, is to encourage clinical and personal reflection on the part of reading clinicians, so as to foster more thought about the meaning and complexities of the therapeutic encounter. It does so by offering three clinical examples and a searching discussion of what each might teach us about the case at hand, ourselves, and the world.
The book begins with an honest exploration of the limitations accompanying any and every attempt to write about the action of psychotherapy, which the first volume characterised as ineffable. More particularly, it is suggested that the deepest therapeutic phenomenon, experiential "proximity," is itself neither fully observable to the participants nor capturable by a verbal account. These concessions, which effectively confine the therapeutic "mechanism" to the air of every encounter, threaten to make descriptions of psychotherapy useless. However, while we can never rightly describe the fundamental cause of change, we can describe its observable corollaries. It is then suggested that certain therapeutic postures—those of kindness, openness, and sameness—facilitate the expansion of the other’s cognitive apparatus and thereby the "knowns" that inhabit their minds (the main goal of therapy, per Volume I).
A Humane Vision of Clinical Psychology, Volume II, is valuable for therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other practitioners as well as graduate and undergraduate students in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, mental health, social work, and philosophy.
Part I: Accounts of Going With, 1. On the Centrality of Kindness, 2. Abruptly Knowing Emma: On Mystery, 3. Sameness is an Ethical Stance: For Peter and the Universal "Pit", Part II: Coda, Coda: The World is Longing
Biography
Robert A. Graceffo, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice and a lecturer and supervisor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, USA.
A Humane Vision of Clinical Psychology is a remarkable book on several fronts. First it is humanely written. Graceffo takes pains to write crisply and eloquently about the need for a broader and deeper theoretical vision for clinical psychology but also and just as cogently about the challenges of his own life that led him to articulate this vision. Second, Graceffo identifies the "ocean" (or "more" as William James put it) that each person has access to but that so often gets covered over and reduced by mountains of cultural and sometimes even psychotherapeutic presumption. Third, Graceffo perceptively underscores love and kindness as underlying healing ingredients, almost regardless of the therapeutic technique applied. In the final analysis, this book makes a powerful case for ways of being with clients that alerts them to their own powers to deeply live--rather than merely exist or fit into categories peripheral to them. I highly recommend this book as a "clinician's desk reference." -- Kirk J. Schneider, Ph.D., author of The Psychology of Existence (with Rollo May), Existential-Humanistic Therapy (with Orah Krug), Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy, and Awakening to Awe.
"In this book, Graceffo looks behind the constructs of modern psychological systems. Psychotherapy helps so many people, but the vocabulary and its techniques can seem reductive; psychological disciplines can appear mechanistic. How to prevent modern psychological understandings, helpful though they are, from becoming a barrier? This book examines the ways we are and experience situations. Through three case studies we hear how new things can be known about others and compassion can arise in surprising situations. What is a ‘problem’ and how do we decide it is one and what the outcome should be? Humility in how we know and about what we know, in the manner suggested by this book, would be very helpful for us all." -- Sarah Shaw, PhD, Member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, UK; Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies
"It is easy to fall into the flow of current thinking about an array of issues, practices, and beliefs. When time (and effort) is used to reflect on the true essence of things, we can be reminded about what is vital and what is superfluous. Robert Graceffo eloquently reminds us that the philosophical and humanistic roots of psychotherapy are vital to its success. Without this perspective we face the possibility that psychotherapy, as we know it, will warp into another disembodied medical practice." -- Bruce E. Wampold, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin - Madison.
