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Hidden Faults: Recognizing and Resolving Therapeutic Disjunctions

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In contrast to the depiction of therapy in the classical psychoanalytic mode, Dr. Frankel's therapies are both alive and passionate. The detailed reports illustrate Dr. Frankel's role in confronting his own mistakes and working collaboratively with his patients to set things right. The concept of disjunctions is readily accessible to anyone who has ever been in therapy and is certainly a daily experience for seasoned psychotherpists. What Dr. Frankel carefully describes is a technique of working with the patient, of admitting one's mistakes as a therapist, and developing greater intimacy with the patient. Child therapists will be particularly receptive to his emphasis upon the extension of development throughout the life cycle. Family therapists will find this a useful extension of interpersonal systems theories into work with individual patients. Adult therapists of many theoretical persuasions will find this book an invaluable resource in negociating the choppy waters of resistance and countertransference impasses. Of greatest importance, Hidden Faults will free therapists to be more honest with themselves and their patients to the benefit of both.

Hidden Faults is a book that commands the attention not only of therapists but anyone who in working in any one of the helping professions. As a retired teacher, school counselor and principal I found Dr. Frankel's discussion of disjunctions right on the mark. Dr. Frankel continues to explore the concept of the self and other unit (SO) which he developed in his book Intricate Engagements, but this time the emphasis is on the disjunctions that may occur between the two. He uses his case experiences to illustrate the ways in which therapist and patient, whether consciously or unconsciously, may misinterpret one another. Dr. Frankel's self-criticism is often brutally frank. The honesty with which he probes his own failure to recognize what his patients are trying to tell him speaks to his professional integrity and his ongoing quest to make his work reap positive results. The writing is lucid and sharp, often engaging the reader in such manner that he becomes a third party to the therapy session. Educators could learn much from Dr. Frankel's work. As a result of reading Hidden Faults I began thinking about my own career. I believe that on those occasions when I felt I wasn't "getting through" to students, I was hearing but not listening to what they were telling me. Instead of trying to learn and understand what they saw as their problems, I was often quick to diagnose and suggest alternative of behavior that would more nearly conform to my agenda and the school's. I wanted to change them, but in no way were they going to change me. It seems to me that the inability to recognize disjunctions that occur within adult-student relationships in school is one of the prime reasons professionals are unable to get a handle on many of the problems facing schools today. Although primarily a book for practicing therapists, Hidden Faults, by extension, makes the case for understanding and resolving the disjunctions in all human relationships.

I have found the concept of disjunctions very useful in my clinical work with patients. It has been true for many years that in my own practice I have found an active, relational perspective very useful. In Hidden Faults, Dr. Steven Frankel organizes the ways in which honest communication about errors can be conveyed to patients. In my work as a woman therapist working often with women as patients, I have found the movement away from the authoritarian male model of therapy crucial. Many of my patients have had unsuccessful prior therapies with aloof and self-justifying therapist whose errors go unrecognized. Surely Dr. Frankel's approach is more humane and enlightened. Patients and therapist alike would benefit from a careful reading of Dr. Frankel's clinical examples.

I have found this book to be extremely useful to evaluate critical junctures (and disjunctions) along the way in therapy. It is a bold and important step to not only recognize the infallibility of the therapist, but also to be able to use that perspective as an important part of therapeutic relationship. This can be an asset, when openly acknowledged and skillfully worked with. Psychological perfectionism on the part of a therapist hinders the work, and is an inappropriate model for a healing relationship. This book goes a long way to address these issues, and more...