Customer Reviews

Modes of Therapeutic Action

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This book is among my five most favorite books in my therapy library. Prioritizing this list would be as impossible as ranking your own children. Modes of Therapeutic Action is a brilliant articulation of therapeutic theory, and a highly motivating invitation to be flexible and theoretically inclusive as a therapist in order to "optimize therapy" (Martha Stark's term).

You get the seed of the work in the introduction: Three stances--(1) classic psychoanalytic objective analysis for the benefit of the client's insight into structural conflicts, (2) self-psychology and object relations orientation to provide corrective experience for client's deficits, and (3) therapist as authentic subject for the sake of understanding the client's relational dynamics. She notes that each is of great value, yet none, she points out is "self-sufficient."

This seed is a lot to digest. The good news is that as I have let the seed germinate in myself it has grown and developed. The roots spiral deep for clarification, and branch off as the complexity is revealed. As the book unfolds, this "plant" blossoms. Its flower is a beautiful and colorful articulation of the necessity of blending these classic approaches to optimize therapy. I would add that the personal stretch that this flexibility requires offers a great tool for professional and personal development.

Dr. Stark's vignettes are wonderfully transparent stories of her own work. They consistently remind me of my own growing edges as a therapist. She makes it clear that our humanity, with its gifts, failures and limits, all contribute to the therapeutic equation. The more we, as therapists, recognize what we are doing as we do it, the better off everyone concerned is.

Among her highlights are the way she talks about pure empathy and its requirement to truly step outside of oneself and into another's world. This is contrasted with authenticity that requires staying soundly connected to oneself and allowing that awareness to be known. Such shifts of consciousness can be missed. I know how it takes great attention to stay present to the moment-to-moment barrage of stimuli that arise in the therapeutic relationship. So, this is a book about consciousness as much as about therapeutic theory and practice. Her words are like a good meditation teacher saying, "stay awake."

Besides the three stances she helps to navigate difficult realms such as transference and countertransference. She makes it clear that they are about the client and about the therapist as they co-create the relationship. No one gets off the hook from having to bring things to consciousness if the therapy is to progress. She gives insight and support to work with clients' relentless pressure to have therapists be what they expect based on influences of their developmental filters. And she explains how therapists' inevitable failures are also an important part of the process. These ideas and her very practical suggestions are worthy of serious contemplation. Her discussions of projections, projective identification, therapeutic seductiveness, and other complicated and potentially entangling aspects of the therapeutic relationship are equally insightful and give practical suggestion.
This book is a humbling reminder that my humanity as a therapist is an essential component of helping those who are courageous enough to bring their deepest vulnerabilities to me in search of gaining what they need.

I have used this book in a course I teach at Xavier University. There I offer concentration exercises, consciousness exercises and artistic activity to study mindful attention--in stillness, in action, and in relationship. These exercises simulate therapy situations that help students learn deeper aspects of themselves in the therapeutic relationship. This helps them to attune to themselves authentically, and to self-observe technically what is happening. I value Dr. Stark's theoretical backdrop for the experiential learning students engage in.

Some parts have been challenging to me. I still have a few unfinished sections to study. If there is a critique it is that I find it difficult at times to decompress the dense material, and I have to keep remembering important distinctions in order to integrate the whole of it. Yet this is like criticizing the Yosemite Valley or Grand Canyon that recall hikers, climbers and photographers back again and again to get new experience and perspective.

I am deeply grateful to Martha Stark for what she has written. Even after many years of practice, understanding therapy remains complex. Modes of Therapeutic Action has helped me in my work, and has helped my students to wake up and to practice being present to what they do in ways that they did not know were possible for them. Like anything important staying awake takes practice and study. So I keep recognizing that I must regularly sit quiet, notice, allow the chatter to settle, and allow my perceptions to sharpen. This book helps.

Finally, this work reveals Martha Stark as a person who appears to live in her three modes: with the precise scholarship of a passionate scientist, the compassionate attunement of a good-enough parent, and the honest, vulnerable openness of a deeply trusted colleague or friend. I am thrilled to own this book. I could write much more, but do not want to delay your decision to purchase it. And, I can't wait for her new book to come out about Optimal Stress. I heard a little preview in a lecture she gave at UCLA, and it sounds like it is going to be another one to get right away.

Martha Stark does an incredible job summarizing the basic modes of therapeutic theory/technique. this has allowed me to re-frame the way I do therapy, and facilitates my ability to be aware of and shift between different modes of therapeutic technique, even within the same session.

Modes of Theraputic Action continues the train of thought Dr. Stark began in her previous book Working with Resistance. While professional therapists are the target audience for the book I found much here to deepen my understanding of the theraputic process as a client. The clinical vingettes Dr. Stark has chosen to share are particularly helpful. Dr. Stark's writing style is clear, concise and deeply thoughtful. A marvelous book that will give you new insights into the theraputic process.