A Healing Relationship

A Healing Relationship: Commentary on Therapeutic Dialogues is about relationally focused psychotherapy, how the author works, and why. The first few chapters provide a brief orientation to relationally focused aspects of integrative psychotherapy. They are followed by the heart of the book: transaction-by-transaction examples of what actually occurs in the psychotherapeutic dialogue. These are presented as three verbatim transcripts along with annotations about what the author was thinking and feeling when he engaged in psychotherapy with each client. This book is intended to elicit a dialogue between the reader and author and is written as though a personal letter. It is important to appreciate how to think about theories, the concepts that underlie the methods chosen, how to assess the therapeutic setting, and express personal temperament. Richard G . Erskine has taken an important step in communication about the practice of psychotherapy. Not only with this excellent book but also with video footage of the three therapy sessions. The overarching aim is to stimulate important conversations between colleagues; to both agree and disagree, to influence each other, to grow professionally, and to share knowledge.