TELLING STORIES?

Attachment Based Approaches To The Treatment of Psychosis

EDITED BY SARAH BENAMER

BIC Code: Psychoanalysis & Psychoanalytical Theory (JCAF)
In the The John Bowlby Memorial Conference Monograph Series

Telling Stories? explores the contemporary state of affairs with regards to the understanding and treatment of psychosis.

An inclusive approach to mental distress requires that in order to truly understand psychosis we must begin by listening to those who know this from the inside out; the voices and narrative of those who have been condemned as ‘unanalysable’ and mad.

Far from being fantastical the complex stories that are being articulated communicate painful truths and the myriad ways in which the human psyche survives overwhelming trauma.
This book is the culmination of an integrated and creative alliance between those on the cutting edge, experientially, in research, diagnosis, and treatment; this multidisciplinary dialogue proposes a new relational and attachment orientated paradigm for the 21st century. In contrast to the containment model that is currently favoured this advocates listening and talking therapies, and the healing power of a loving relationship, offering those with psychosis the possibility of more nourishing engagement with the world.

Contributors – Joseph Schwartz – Julie McNamara – Jacqui Dillon – John Read – Andrew Gumley – Christian Blake – Mark Linington – Tony Leiba.

About the Editor,  Sarah Benamer  is a member of The Bowlby Centre and a relational psychotherapist working in private practice, and is deeply committed to psychotherapy being inclusive. Her clinical work has afforded her experience and insight in working with clients who have experienced a range of mental distress, and who come from a broad spectrum of society, most of whom are seeking therapeutic alternatives to anti- psychotic medication and lives paralysed by histories of abuse and trauma. Prior to training as a psychotherapist she worked as an independent advocate with those in crisis in the NHS psychiatric system where it was clear that the existing treatment paradigm did not seek to understand the traumatic undercurrents that were being evoked and enacted on the wards. Her particular interest in trauma and the body has meant that she is aware of the power of the non verbal communication in the therapeutic dyad and how in psychotic narratives the telling may be piecemeal, with integration only available through collective understanding over time.

Price:£ 19.99
Pbk 154pp, September 2010
ISBN:9781855758759

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