Therapeutic Love and Heartfullness: Meanderings Through Group Analysis, Group Analytic Art Therapy and Individual Therapy

This book introduces the concepts of “therapeutic love” and “heartfullness,” combining models of group analysis, art therapy, and individual psychotherapy to present a new psychotherapeutic framework where non-erotic love is engendered and evoked within therapeutic encounters.

The heart has often been conceptualised as symbolic of sexuality and eroticism, with little meaning beyond the romantic, and therefore often removed from psychotherapeutic perspectives. Responding to this, the author calls for placing the heart as the central point of reference in therapeutic work, emphasizing how it is touched during a therapeutic session. This, in turn, gives way for the therapist’s own emotions and thoughts, such as empathy, identification, concern, protectiveness and laughter, to be released.

Building upon the author’s 40 years of experience in practice and new developments in these models, this book ‘meanders’ through evolving theories and integrates them for both patients and trainees across backgrounds and cultures. Enriched with the author’s personal clinical vignettes and unique influences of music, art, golf, and even Ireland, this book aims to give a greater voice to the patient-and their heart- within the therapeutic space.

This book is essential reading for any counsellor, therapist, or analyst and offers a new way of looking at therapeutic endeavours across methodologies in all their simplicities and complexities.