Ordeal Therapy: Unusual Ways to Change Behavior

by Jay Haley

Noted therapist Jay Haley reveals how ordeals work in therapy and offers numerous case histories to illustrate how ordeals can help individuals, couples, and families solve a wide range of problems, even in cases with a history of therapeutic failure.

Genres: Psychology

213 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1984

Reviews

[Padmanabhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first psychology related read and its an interesting book. It's like Chicken soup for the soul i.e stories of different people with issues and what the doctor recommended for each patient. It's good exposure and learning.

[Sam Dye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paradoxical intention has been used in logotherapy (Viktor Frankl) and reality therapy (William Glasser), but Jay Haley's book brings a more sophisticated and better organized approach to a variety of problems. In one interesting story in Chapter 7 a 70 yo woman had a 50 yo schizophrenic son who "irritated the life out of her by sitting and moaning and groaning". She enjoyed reading so the therapist told her to take her son with her in the car and leave him by the side of a deserted desert road. Then drive three miles down the road and read her book. She was warned of how the son would try to get her sympathy. He progressively improved until he asked to go bowling while she read there. He previously had been deemed without hope. Other more typical problems that were resolved include compulsive hand washing, extreme anxiety/panic attack, depression, refusal/inability to work, temper tamtrum, blocking in speech, bullying behavior in a 10 year old boy, son of a divorcing couple (dysfunctional father with interesting therapist interaction at the end), problem drinking in a bored wife, public masturbation in a 10 year old boy (going on for 5 years cured in ten weeks), socially inhibited mathematics teacher (his ordeal was to stand at 2am and read math journal for an hour), 5 yo refusing to be potty trained, idealistic young man from an upper middle class European family on a cycle of work then becoming a bum, a priest with sexual pleasure issues. Almost all of these people had failed conventional therapy for an extended time. The ten weeks for the boy with public masturbation was on of the longer times required for resolution.

Basically a publishing of theraputic encounters, it is sometimes not the best prose, but that is not the intent of the book. The concepts need to be taught to all therapists.

[William Conti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Questo libro, nonostante siano passati quarant'anni dalla sua pubblicazione, resta un punto di riferimento preciso e ricco di spunti utili per approfondire l'approccio della terapia breve strategica.
In particolare, viene trattata la pratica dell'ordalia terapeutica, strumento controintuitivo e paradossale che richiede al terapeuta un buon uso della fantasia nei confronti della situazione da gestire.

Dopo una breve ma precisa introduzione, nella quale vengono descritte chiaramente l'origine, la struttura e gli obiettivi di questa pratica, troviamo le trascrizioni di 12 diversi casi nei quali l'ordalia ha portato ad un preciso cambiamento nelle abitudini dei pazienti. Molta attenzione è posta nell'esplorazione della situazione disfunzionale da parte del terapeuta, che deve cercare gli spunti necessari per la costruzione di un'ordalia su misura senza però protrarre eccessivamente questa fase.

La narrazione non viene rallentata dall'uso di un linguaggio eccessivamente tecnico, ma al tempo stesso i casi non sono romanzati né trattati superficialmente, il che rende la lettura piacevole e al tempo stesso utile per gli addetti ai lavori. Un ottimo libro che consiglierei a chiunque abbia già apprezzato le opere di Oliver Sacks.

[Chuck]

Outstanding book. Should be required reading for anyone who strives to be the best change therapist they can be!