Customer Reviews

Moving Beyond the Comfort Zone in Psychotherapy

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Moving Beyond the Comfort Zone in Psychotherapy is a wonderful and important book. With insight and compassion, Ms. Bridges has written a book that will appeal to therapists and those in therapy alike but for different reasons.

Therapists will appreciate Bridges' use of intersubjective/relational, attachment, and developmental theories to explore the relationship between the therapist and patient in order to affect therapeutic change and growth.

As a psychotherapist, I appreciate the combination of sound, innovative theory as well as many case examples. Through these, Bridges helps therapists conceptualize and navigate their relationships with patients in an engaged, empathic manner that honors the safety and mutuality of the relationship by establishing negotiated rather than rigid boundaries. Bridges skillfully uses this framework to examine the often complex and intense feelings a therapist can have toward a patient (e.g., sexual and loving feelings as well as anger, hatred, and rage); exceptional requests (e.g., gift-giving, hugs, attending a patient's wedding); and disclosures by the therapist (e.g., balancing expressiveness and restraint). I found her perspective quite helpful in thinking about my work with patients: how to stay deeply engaged, even in the most challenging of circumstances, rather than distancing or acting out.

Those in therapy will also find this book helpful. It offers an inside view of therapy from the therapist's perspective. Bridges explores her feelings, thoughts, struggles, and clinical decisions as she navigates often complex and intimate therapeutic relationships.

A real contribution to the field.

Carolyn Stevenson, L.C.S.W., M.Div.