Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Arthur Robbins demonstrates how important countertransference reactions are as sources of information and understanding of patient/therapist interactions. For many therapists, forming supervisory/integration groups provides a means of articulating countertransference issues which allows for self-exploration, investigation and understanding. Robbins presents transcriptions of some of these group supervision sessions, which emphasize the mixture of cognitive and affective organization which the therapist is continually exploring with the patient. He examines the issues that are raised in each session, highlighting the difficulty for the therapist of maintaining objective emotional distance from the patient while remaining receptive, and the complex issue of how much of the therapist's own personality should be permitted to emerge during the therapeutic relationship. A special chapter addresses teh complex countertransference issues that specifically apply to creative art therapy.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Foreword to New Edition (p. 7)
• Foreword (p. 9)
• Acknowledgments (p. 12)
• 1. Countertransference Learning and the Role of the Professional Analyst (p. 13)
• The Therapist as "Container" (p. 13)
• The Group: An Alternative Mode (p. 14)
• The Focus on Countertransference Material (p. 14)
• The Role of Group Members (p. 16)
• An Aesthetic View of Professional Training (p. 17)
• The Particularity of the Groups (p. 21)
• Group 1
• 2. Don: Therapeutic Collusion (p. 24)
• Prologue: The Challenger (p. 24)
• The Session: The Ideas of January (p. 25)
• Reciprocal Exploration (p. 38)
• 3. Julie: Cast in the Role of the Healer (p. 42)
• Death Guidance (p. 42)
• Simonton: Pros and Cons (p. 42)
• "I Don't Need This" (p. 46)
• A New Therapeutic Alliance (p. 56)
• 4. George: Homosexual Anxiety (p. 60)
• Creating the "Holding Environment" (p. 60)
• The Case of "Arcade Joe" (p. 62)
• The Problem of the Paranoid Patient (p. 78)
• 5. Reiko: A Mirroring Stance Flows into Fusion (p. 82)
• Twinship and Separation (p. 82)
• "We Don't Do That to People" (p. 92)
• Transcultural Recognition (p. 100)
• Group 2
• 6. Daisy: Greed and the Therapist (p. 103)
• No Perfect "Parent," No Powerless Patient (p. 103)
• The Session: Giving and Getting (p. 104)
• The Insatiability of Depression (p. 123)
• 7. Daisy: Exploring the Male Element in the Female Therapist (p. 127)
• A High-Functioning Woman (p. 127)
• The "Bridal" Patient (p. 135)
• Varieties of "Performance Anxiety" (p. 146)
• 8. Janice: Expanding Transitional Space (p. 149)
• To Dance or Not to Dance (p. 149)
• The "Magic" Mirror and the Mother Within (p. 172)
• 9. Janice: The Therapist as a Whore (p. 176)
• A Study in Contrast (p. 176)
• The Presentation: A "Numbers" Man (p. 177)
• "False Self" versus Transcendence (p. 196)
• 10. Lenore: Rage as a Screen for Oedipal Guilt (p. 200)
• Preliminaries: The Day's Work and the Night's Dream (p. 200)
• The Session: Too Close to Home (p. 201)
• The Vital "Connection" (p. 216)
• 11. In Search of a Home for the Soul (p. 220)
• A Farewell Note (p. 237)
• Bibliography (p. 241)
• Index (p. 251)

Author notes provided by Syndetics