Secrets in Psychotherapy: Stories that Inform Clinical Work

This book brings together contemporary perspectives from psychodynamic treatment, advances in cognitive science, medicine, and neuroscience in a user-friendly format to guide the beginning to more advanced practitioner in working with secrets that emerge during psychotherapy.

Despite their ubiquity in life and in clinical practice, secrets and secret-keeping receive limited attention in the training and skill set required for mental health clinicians. Drawing on personal experience and clinical expertise as well as film, memoir, and literature, Dr. Kathryn Zerbe shares how secrets come to light in life and within treatment and demonstrates the powerful hold that secrets can have on our lives. This book offers a fresh take on how we view our secrets, and how we can use them as a tool to sustain our most intimate and valued connections over the course of a lifetime. Using cutting-edge research as well as honed clinical expertise, the author suggests how one might go about managing the secrets of everyday living that we must keep as well as how we can identify which we can let go. Particular attention is paid to the mind/body relationship and somatic countertransference reactions. Each chapter suggests guidelines to promote wellness and resilience in the secret keeper, whether that be the psychotherapist or their patient.

Written with compassion and in a user-friendly style, Secrets in Psychotherapy will benefit anyone who is navigating the thorny terrain of keeping a secret for themselves or someone they know. It is an essential read for psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, and practicing mental health professionals of all disciplines.