Therapeutic Pluralism


Book Description

The profile of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has risen dramatically over the last decade and cancer patients represent its most prolific users. As a result, the NHS and UK cancer services are attempting to develop a wider range of therapeutic options for patients. Despite such developments, little is known about why cancer patients use CAM, its perceived benefits and the perspectives of the doctors and nurses involved. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in the UK, Therapeutic Pluralism includes over 120 interviews with cancer patients and professionals, plus innovative ‘diary’ data which, for the first time, detail the experiences of CAM users. It gives a systematic analysis of issues such as: The development of patient preferences and influences on decision making Expectations of CAM and interpretations of ‘success’ in cancer treatment The nature and importance of ‘evidence’ and ‘effectiveness’ for patients The organisational dynamics involved in integrating CAM into the NHS Pathways to CAM and the role of the Internet The role of oncology clinicians in patients’ experiences of cancer and their use of CAMs Therapeutic Pluralism is essential reading for students and researchers of medical sociology, complementary and alternative medicine and cancer. It will also be useful to medical and health professionals, and policy-makers with an interest in complementary and alternative medicine.




Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy


Book Description

Mick Cooper and John McLeod pioneer a major new framework for counselling theory, practice and research - the ′pluralistic′ approach. This model breaks away from the orientation-specific way in which counselling has traditionally been taught, reflecting and responding to shifts in counselling and psychotherapy training. As accessible and engaging as ever, Cooper and McLeod argue that there is no one right way of doing therapy and that different clients need different things at different times. By identifying and demonstrating the application of a range of therapeutic methods, the book outlines a flexible framework for practice within which appropriate methods can be selected depending on the client′s individual needs and the therapist′s knowledge and experience. This is a must-read for anybody training or practising in the counselling or helping professions - it should not be missed!




Pluralistic Therapy


Book Description

Pluralistic Therapy: Distinctive Features offers an introduction to what is distinctive about this increasingly popular method. Written by one of the co-founders of pluralistic therapy, and a leading UK figure in counselling and psychotherapy, this book describes 15 theoretical features and 15 practical techniques for practitioners. Pluralistic therapy is a flexible, integrative approach to counselling and psychotherapy, which has also found applications in fields such as mental health, life coaching and careers guidance. Pluralistic Therapy: Distinctive Features will provide an essential guide to students and practitioners of psychotherapy, or an allied area of practice, who are open to learning about new ideas and techniques from current interdisciplinary research.




Asymmetrical Conversations


Book Description

Ideas about health are reinforced by institutions and their corresponding practices, such as donning a patient's gown in a hospital or prostrating before a healing shrine. Even though we are socialized into regarding such ideologies as "natural" and unproblematic, we sometimes seek to bypass, circumvent, or even transcend the dominant ideologies of our cultures as they are manifested in the institutions of health care. The contributors to this volume describe such contestations and circumventions of health ideologies, and the blurring of therapeutic boundaries, on the basis of case studies from India, the South Asian Diaspora, and Europe, focusing on relations between body, mind, and spirit in a variety of situations. The result is not always the "live and let live" medical pluralism that is described in the literature.




Feminist Psychotherapies


Book Description

This volume demonstrates that there is no one feminist therapy, but rather a variety. Each has grown from the integration of feminist principles with multiple therapy theories. The authors present several products of this integration as models. The first section's chapters trace the influence of feminism on the development of feminist therapy, discuss a variety of professional issues and the goals of feminist therapy, discuss developmental issues, and examine the interface between feminist and psychotherapy systems, including psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral and family systems. The second section includes chapters on feminist therapies with women, single female parents, men, lesbians and gays, ethnic minorities, and the elderly.




The Therapeutic Relationship


Book Description

This text provides coverage of the uses and abuses of the therapeutic relationship in counselling, psychology, psychotherapy and related fields. It provides a framework for integration, pluralism or deepening singularity with reference to five kinds of therapeutic relationship potentially available in every kind of counselling or psychodynamic work. The work incoporates training and supervision perspectives and examples of course design, uses in assessment and applications to group and couples as well as to organizations. Dealing with an issue of increasing complexity, the book should be of value and significance to psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, clinical and counselling psychologists and other professionals working in the field of helping human relationships such as doctors, social workers, teachers and counsellors.




The Therapeutic Use of Self


Book Description

The Therapeutic Use of Self has continued, since its publication in 1999, to be considered a key text within integrative, humanistic and relational approaches for the training and development of therapists in the UK and abroad. This long-awaited classic edition includes powerful case examples and extensive research findings, presenting the counsellor’s evaluation of their own practice as the main vehicle for the development of insight and awareness into individual ‘therapeutic’ characteristics. The book addresses many of the taboos and infrequently discussed aspects of therapy, such as: The value of therapist failure Breaking the rules of counselling Working beyond the accepted boundaries of counselling. The Therapeutic Use of Self will help professionals and trainees acknowledge, develop and value their own unique contribution to counselling and psychotherapy. The book remains a ground-breaking examination of the individual therapist’s contribution to process and outcome in counselling and supervision.




Seductive Reasoning


Book Description

Seductive Reasoning takes a provocative look at contemporary Anglo-American literary theory, calling into question the critical consensus on pluralism's nature and its status in literary studies. Drawing on the insights of Marxist and feminist critical theory and on the works of Althusser, Derrida, and Foucault, Rooney reads the pluralist’s invitation to join in a "dialogue" as a seductive gesture. Critics who respond find that they must seek to persuade all of their potential readers. Rooney examines pluralism as a form of logic in the work of E. D. Hirsch, as a form of ethics for Wayne Booth, as a rhetoric of persuasion in the books of Stanley Fish. For Paul de Man, Rooney argues, pluralism was a rhetoric of tropes just as it was, for Fredric Jameson, a form of politics.




The Role of Complementary and Alternative Medicine


Book Description

At the center of the debate over complementary and alternative medicine--from acupuncture and chiropractic treatments to homeopathy and nutritional supplements--is how to scientifically measure the effectiveness of a particular treatment. Fourteen scholars from the fields of medicine, philosophy, sociology, and cultural and folklore studies examine that debate, and the clash between growing public support and the often hostile stance of clinicians and medical researchers. Proponents and critics have different methodologies and standards of evidence--raising the question of how much pluralism is acceptable in a medical context--particularly in light of differing worldviews and the struggle to define medicine in the modern world. The contributors address both the methodological problems of assessment and the conflicting cultural perspectives at work in a patient's choice of treatment. Sympathetic to CAM, the contributors nonetheless offer careful critiques of its claims, and suggest a variety of ways it can be taken seriously, yet subject to careful scrutiny.




Pluralism and Identity


Book Description

The subject of this book is ritual behaviour, in particular of groups with a distinctive religious, ethnic or other identity which use rituals to pursue strategic ends ad intra and ad extra. Five essays offer theoretical perspectives on ritual in plural and pluralist societies, on similarity and demarcation, on the negative case of the Australian Aboriginals, on Brazilian religious pluralism, and on Ghanaian churches in the Netherlands. Three essays describe the ritualization of the encounter, or confrontation, between religions in India (between Buddhists and Hindus, and between Hindus and Muslims), and in Yemen between Muslims and Jews. Four essays study the responses to internal religious plurality, in early Israel, on Java, in Indonesia, and in Spain and North Africa. One essay explores responses to external religious plurality. In the epilogue, the social nature of pluralism and identity is highlighted.