Overview

Mutual Growth in the Psychotherapeutic Relationship: Reciprocal Resilience is an essential, innovative guide for mental health professionals who listen repeatedly to stories of devastation and trauma. Moving beyond traditions that consider the clinician as existing only for the patient and not as an individual, this breakthrough model explores the possibility of mutual resilience-building and personal benefit developing between therapists and their patients. The first section of the book situates Reciprocal Resilience in the context of evolving resilience studies. The second section provides lively, demonstrative clinical anecdotes from therapists themselves, organized into chapters focused on enhancing their positive strategies for coping and growth while functioning under duress. This book presents a framework for teaching and supervising psychotherapists that can enrich clinician well-being, while recognizing the therapeutic relationship as the key for enabling patients’ emotional growth. It challenges mental health practitioners to share their own experiences, presenting a research model syntonic with how clinicians think and work daily in their professional practice. It offers a pioneering approach, finding inspiration in even the darkest moments for therapists and patients alike.

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9781138360433

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Reviews

Can therapists benefit from listening to traumatic stories, from being the holding container for clients' feelings? With theoretical and historical backdrop, stories unfold, in therapists' own words, introducing the concept of Reciprocal Resilience: the emotional loop between client and therapist that sustains each in the process. Patricia Bratt's commentaries bring to life the psychic struggles clinicians face, opening unexpected perspective on the therapeutic relationship. Stories reveal contexts where coping skills, resilience correlates used to manage earlier life issues, re-emerge in the co-created emotional field in therapy. In this pioneering work, she describes a method, easy to adopt in treatment or in supervision. It makes use of the nuances of the therapeutic relationship, enhancing early defenses, and promotes reciprocal resilience and psychic growth for both parties. Mutual Growth is a generative and generous book. --Donna Bassin, Ph.D., faculty at NYU and maintains a private practice in New York City. Her documentary, The Mourning After, was the winner of the 2017 Gradiva award Patricia Bratt's book opens up a new clinical vista for our consideration. This pertains to the mutual interplay of psychic growth between the patient and the therapist as their work progresses. Bringing Bion's notion of the `container' and Winnicott's concept of `survival' to bear upon the modern relational paradigm of the therapeutic process, Bratt formulates the novel concept of `reciprocal resilience'. She elucidates its overlaps with resilience, adaptive countertransference, and altruism. The neglected dimension of the therapist's well-being is thus brought into a sharp focus, adding an important tool to our therapeutic armamentarium! --Salman Akhtar, MD, Professor, Thomas Jefferson University, Supervising and Training Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia It may be an odd idea that treating our most traumatized clients can lead to growth and resilience on the part of the therapist while helping the client develop better coping skills. Instinctively, Pat understands the mutual benefits of therapy for both. In a theoretical and clinically alive book, this symbiotic interaction leading to Reciprocal Resilience is deftly presented. Fascinating, moving stories in therapists' own words highlight the interactive, emotional loop between client and therapist . Tales of resilience , demonstrate ways therapists' work is growth enhancing. The book presents a framework for teaching and supervising psychotherapists that can enrich clinician well being, while recognizing the therapeutic relationship as the key for enabling patients' emotional growth. Making use of the concept of Reciprocal Resilience, it presents a trail-blazing approach easily incorporated in clinical practice. --Vicki Semel, PsyD is President and supervising faculty of the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis (ACAP). She maintains a private practice in Livingston, NJ and New York City

Can therapists benefit from listening to traumatic stories, from being the holding container for clients' feelings? With theoretical and historical backdrop, stories unfold, in therapists' own words, introducing the concept of Reciprocal Resilience: the emotional loop between client and therapist that sustains each in the process. Patricia Bratt's commentaries bring to life the psychic struggles clinicians face, opening unexpected perspective on the therapeutic relationship. Stories reveal contexts where coping skills, resilience correlates used to manage earlier life issues, re-emerge in the co-created emotional field in therapy. In this pioneering work, she describes a method, easy to adopt in treatment or in supervision. It makes use of the nuances of the therapeutic relationship, enhancing early defenses, and promotes reciprocal resilience and psychic growth for both parties. Mutual Growth is a generative and generous book. --Donna Bassin, Ph.D., faculty at NYU and maintains a private practice in New York City. Her documentary, The Mourning After, was the winner of the 2017 Gradiva award Patricia Bratt's book opens up a new clinical vista for our consideration. This pertains to the mutual interplay of psychic growth between the patient and the therapist as their work progresses. Bringing Bion's notion of the `container' and Winnicott's concept of `survival' to bear upon the modern relational paradigm of the therapeutic process, Bratt formulates the novel concept of `reciprocal resilience'. She elucidates its overlaps with resilience, adaptive countertransference, and altruism. The neglected dimension of the therapist's well-being is thus brought into a sharp focus, adding an important tool to our therapeutic armamentarium! --Salman Akhtar, MD, Professor, Thomas Jefferson University, Supervising and Training Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia It may be an odd idea that treating our most traumatized clients can lead to growth and resilience on the part of the therapist while helping the client develop better coping skills. Instinctively, Pat understands the mutual benefits of therapy for both. In a theoretical and clinically alive book, this symbiotic interaction leading to 'Reciprocal Resilience' is deftly presented. Fascinating, moving stories in therapists' own words highlight 'the interactive, emotional loop between client and therapist'. 'Tales of resilience', demonstrate ways therapists' work is growth enhancing. The book presents a framework for teaching and supervising psychotherapists that can enrich clinician well being, while recognizing the therapeutic relationship as the key for enabling patients' emotional growth. Making use of the concept of Reciprocal Resilience, it presents a trail-blazing approach easily incorporated in clinical practice. --Vicki Semel, PsyD is President and supervising faculty of the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis (ACAP). She maintains a private practice in Livingston, NJ and New York City

Author Information

Patricia Harte Bratt is a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist practicing in Livingston, NJ and New York City. She is a director of the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis (ACAP) and the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis-NJ, and president of the National Association for Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP) and the NJ Certified Psychoanalysts Advisory Committee.

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