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There Is No Such Thing As A Therapist: An Introduction to the Therapeutic Process

Author(s) : Carol Holmes

Reviews and Endorsements

'This book deals throughout with the theme of the link between the purpose of therapy and the boundaries of that situation which derive from the omnipresence in the psychological process of the anxieties inherent in separations and death (cf. Robert Langs). The breaking of boundaries can be a collusive event, with the therapist and the client cooperating through mutual unconscious processes to avoid the specific and intense anxieties that need to be faced for the therapy to progress. These ideas contain a central notion that death constitutes an inevitable, unavoidable boundary, the denial of which by both therapist and client can underlie the omnipotent and collusive breaching of the therapeutic boundaries of the type that Carol Holmes describes throughout this volume.

'The theoretical framework denotes a development line through, Freud, Klein and Winnicott (Milner and Little) to Langs, with Ferenczi, Searles, and the existentialism of Satre and Buber as additional reference points. Although centered in many of the tenets of current psychoanalytical thinking, the book offers a critique of psychoanalysis by exploring the weakness of psychoanalytical use of the concept of countertransference as an idea with which to include the therapist in the therapeutic dyad. The viewpoint is also extended by and encapsulated within Irvin Yalom's insight that a focus on personal responsibility is common in most forms of psychotherapy.'
- From the foreword by Christopher Dare, Reader in Psychotherapy, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, University of London