Relational Psychotherapy: A Primer

by Patricia A. DeYoung

Relational A Primer advances the understanding of this comprehensive, reliable model of treatment as it follows the trajectory of the therapy process from beginning to end. Using clear language and warm human terms, experienced therapist and teacher Patricia DeYoung addresses the challenges and rewards of doing relational therapy. She presents relational therapy against a wide range of contemporary psychotherapies, weaving a working synthesis of self psychology, intersubjective theory, various psychoanalytically informed developmental theories, relational psychoanalysis, and feminist self-in-relation theory. Relational Psychotherapy is an essential reference text for both therapists and students, while its personal and lucid writing style make it easily accessible to clients interested in learning more about psychotherapy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Counselling, Social Work

240 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 2003

Reviews

[Antigone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patricia A. DeYoung, a practicing analyst and founding faculty member of the Toronto Institute of Relational Psychotherapy, takes the fledgling student of interpersonal theory on an informative and engaging tour of the relational therapist's treatment dynamic. A swift explanation of the relational approach to contemporary analysis is followed by a step-by-step guide through the therapy itself - first meeting, diagnosis, the goal, the process, achievement and farewell. This proves to be a fascinating journey due, in no small part, to the intimate and "relational" tone DeYoung takes with the reader.

Relational psychotherapy, while influenced by the classical schools, is, at its base, an evolution in technique. Where once the sufferer sat interactionally "separate" from the analyst and existed as the subject of, essentially, a psychological dissection, relational therapy revolves around "self-with-other" and strives toward mutuality - meaning a mutual experience involving mutual understanding and a mutual struggle toward the easing of internal conflict. To put this baldly: Freud was never going to join you in your crisis. The relational therapist will strap her boots on and wade right in.

It's the difference between the practice of one-person psychology and two-person psychology, and few will illustrate it more cogently than DeYoung has here.

[Hanan AL-Raddadi]

I wanted to like this book so much. I have loved DeYoung’s book Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame and had so much hope for this book. But I couldn’t even finish it. The book lacks structure to say the least. I reached the third chapter but still felt like I am reading the introduction. She spent a great time emphasizing the role of empathy in relation therapy. Answering questions like What is empathy? How to communicate it? Why it matters? And explaining that it is a very important tool for a relational therapist. I am not a therapist but even I can’t imagine ANY form a form of therapy in which empathy is not important. In more than one occasion I found myself wondering what exactly is she trying to tell me. May be I will give the book a second chance when this pandemic is over.

[garon nemyre · Rating 5 out of 5]

6 stars if I could. An incredible, well articulated distillation of leading relational theory from several different ‘schools’ that illuminates the power of this new (5th wave?) of therapeutic approach that is TRULY humanistic. Feels very necessary as a counterbalance to the one-person style of therapy still being mass produced in grad schools.

Also full of references to deeper paths of exploration. Really grateful for the author’s writing of this book.

[Emran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! The foundational first and second chapters were hard to keep up with as they were trying to cover comprehensively the basis on which the analysis is done and stories are told in the book. The third, fourth, and fifth chapters were it in a sense. It’s a heavy read book even on a psychological level. Overall, it’s crazy to know that someone has thought about things you thought about before and was able to articulate them masterfully in words. The book is a school to untangle patterns of thoughts, feelings, and states of being learned since childhood as way of interpreting and dealing with the world and oneself.

[Katharine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviews said book was worth it for chapter 5 and I agree. That chapter was worth the book... she vulnerably explores how she and her analyst work through it when they have a rupture. The rest of the book wasn’t as engaging.

[Carl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like the author gave me a good "feel" for Relational Psychotherapy, but I would have liked a little more structure and explanation.