Gestalt Therapy for Addictive and Self-Medicating Behaviors
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
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I THE NEED TO CHANGE
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1. The Nature of Addiction and Self-Medicating Behaviors
2. Just How Fixed Can One Get? The Nature of Recovery
3. The Will to Change
PART II: AN APPROACH TO TREATMENT
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4. The Nature of Individual Experience
5. The Importance of Relationship
6. The Sense of the Situation
7. The Willingness to Experiment
PART III: A PROGRAM FOR CHANGING ONE’S LIFE
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8. One’s World 107
9. The Role of Discipline in A Person’s World
10. Your Client’s Body—The Physical Horizon 131
11. Your Client’s Thought Life—The Cognitive Horizon
12. Your Client’s Emotions—The Affective Horizon
13. Your Client’s Relationships—The Relational Horizon
14. Your Client’s Ultimate Beliefs—The Spiritual Horizon
PART IV: PARADOXICAL CHANGE IN RECOVERY
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15. Living in the Present
16. Working One’s Own Program
17. Trusting in the Process
18. Submitting to Community
Conclusion
Index
- Release Date: December 20, 2011
- Paperback / softback
- 224 Pages
- Trim Size: 6in x 9in
- ISBN: 9780826106957
- eBook ISBN: 9780826106964