This volume describes the most current gestalt approaches to treating substance abuse and other self-medicating behaviors by a leading practitioner and scholar in the field. It is based on the gestalt view of the self-medicating dynamic as one of pattern repetition and difficulty overcoming rigid patterns of response to sensory experience and life's routine demands. The book provides a practical model for helping clients with the gamut of self-medicating behaviors-substance and alcohol abuse, overeating, gambling, overworking, rage, and others-and describes a recovery program as a system created to change one's lifestyle over time through the development of disciplines that ultimately shape one's life. The volume will also be helpful to therapists in other modalities as an alternative therapy when treating self-medicating clients, as well as a spiritual alternative to the 12-step approach. Key Features: Applies current gestalt therapy approaches to the spectrum of addictive behaviors Provides practical treatment models for self-medicating behaviors Written by a prominent practitioner and scholar of gestalt therapy Offers a spiritual alternative to the 12-step approach to recovery

"What we wish to offer you, then, is an updated professional resource that combines both clinical and scientific perspectives. We hope this book will be helpful to professionals who are already treating addictive disorders and also to those who are just learning how to treat addictions. We also encourage health professionals more generally to think of addictions as falling within their own normal scope of work, and we have kept this in mind in our writing. In addiction treatment, it makes a difference what you do and how you do it, and it is far easier to develop evidence-based practice from the outset than to change already established habits."--Page x.

This compelling and comprehensive volume is an anthology of current thinking by many of gestalt therapy’s leading theoreticians, clinicians, and researchers. Including many well-known voices in the field and introducing several new ones to the current gestalt therapy literature, the book presents a broad-ranging compendium of essays, scientific articles, clinical applications, and integrative approaches that represent the richness and vibrancy of the field. Each contributor brings intellectual rigor, honest personal reflection, and humanism to their area of inquiry. This ethos—the spirit of relational gestalt therapy—infuses the whole book, bringing a sense of coherence to its seventeen chapters. Following an introduction written by Mark Winitsky, PhD, as an entry point into the field for students and psychotherapists from other schools of thought, the book is organized into three sections: Theory, Clinical Applications, and Integrative Approaches. Readers will encounter new ways of thinking about psychotherapy, new skills they can bring to their work, and new ways of integrating gestalt therapy with other approaches. The Relational Heart of Gestalt Therapy is essential reading for Gestalt therapists as well as other mental health professionals with an interest in Gestalt approaches.

Christianity and Gestalt Therapy is a unique integration written for psychotherapists who want to better understand their Christian clients and Christian counselors who want a clinically sound approach that embraces Christian spirituality. This book explores critical concepts in phenomenology and how they relate to both gestalt therapy and Christianity. Using mixed literary forms that include poetry and story, this book provides a window into gestalt therapy for Christian counselors interested in learning how the gestalt therapeutic model can be incorporated into their beliefs and practices. It explores the tension in psychology and psychotherapy between a rigid naturalism and an enchanted take on life. A rich mix of theory, philosophy, theology, and practice, Christianity and Gestalt Therapy is an important resource for therapists working with Christian patients.

In these three volumes, a team of scholars provides a thoughtful history of abnormal psychology, demonstrating how concepts regarding disordered mental states, their causes, and their treatments developed and evolved across the ages. Compiling current thought from some of the best minds in the field, Abnormal Psychology across the Ages provides essays that reflect on multiple dimensions of abnormal behavior. These experts present biological, psychological, social, cultural, and supernatural perspectives throughout human history on a range of disorders, as well as the global influences on scientific thinking. A fascinating read for anyone in the field of abnormal psychology, from undergraduate students to clinicians, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, this three-volume work addresses questions such as: What is "abnormal" psychology and thinking? What are the causes, how have we treated it, and how do we treat it now? And how does the culture of the times affect what we perceive as "abnormality"?

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Dr. Levin outlines the treatment of chemical and other addictions such as compulsive gambling, compulsive sexuality, and codependency.

1. behavioral systems approach 2. family systems approach 3. psychoanalytic approach to addictive disorders 4. assessment of substance abuse: an integrated approach 5. diagnosing alcoholism: toward a multisource approach 6. assessment of eating disorders 7. smoking modifications: research and clinical application 8: treatment of alcohol and drug abuse 9. multifaceted treatment of patient with severe eating disorders 10. native americans and substance abuse 11. the elderly and alcohol and medication abuse 12. addiction and traumatic brain injury 13. etiology and treatment of adult children of alcoholics 14. substance abuse and teenagers: a review 15. contertransference in the treatment of addictive disorders 16. supervision of substance abuse counselors 17. clinical supervision of substance abuse therapy.

Consists of articles reprinted from various journals.

A British doctor and addiction specialist explores the many avenues that addiction can take, from alcohol and drugs to food, gambling, and sex.