The Therapist's Use of Self in Family Therapy

By Daniel Bochner

Subjects: psychoanalysis, Family psychotherapy, Self, Family therapy, Countertransference (Psychology), use of self, psychological theory, family systems, countertransference, object relations

Description: In “The Therapist's Use of Self in Family Therapy,” Dr. Bochner introduces his "Relational Systems Model" for psychotherapy and psychology.  The model explains how the thoughts and feelings inside a person's mind directly influence, and are influenced by, all their relationships.  "The Relational Systems Model" utilizes the construct of “totalistic countertransference” in elaborating on the importance of a therapist’s position within a therapist-client, or therapist-family system, and integrates psychodynamic theories of psychology with family systems, humanistic/existential and cognitive models in deriving this unitary psychological model that connects the intrapsychic to the interpersonal, and then to the family and the whole world of relationships. In the book, Dr. Bochner maps out the model from the “drivenness” of the individual for “sustenance” and “safety/aggression” to how those essential needs also drive relatedness in terms of desire and defense within the interpersonal dyadic two-person paradigm, and into larger social groups, like the family and greater society. The model also shows how the greater system of which we are all a part is, of course, always shaping a person as he or she makes use of his or her own unique qualities to maximize an ideal equilibrium between their particular needs and perceptions and the interpersonal/world around them. The model also presents new opportunities for systematically understanding primary individual diagnoses as well as personality dynamics. “The Therapist's Use of Self in Family Therapy” has been hailed by clinicians and theoreticians as "brilliant," "integrative," "inventive," "beautifully constructed," "original," "creative," and "comprehensive" (Martha Stark, M.D., Boston Psychoanalytic Institute; David Scharff, M.D., International Institute of Object Relations; Stephen J. Schultz, Ph.D., Author: Family Systems Thinking; Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D, Family Institute Northwestern University).