The Transforming Power Of Affect: A Model For Accelerated Change [Hardcover]

Diana Fosha (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2000

The first model of accelerated psychodynamic therapy to make the theoretical why as important as the formula for how, Fosha's original technique for catalyzing change mandates explicit empathy and radical engagement by the therapist to elicit and harness the patient's own healing affects. Its wide-open window on contemporary relational and attachment theory ushers in a safe, emotionally intense, experience-based pathway for processing previously unbearable feelings. This is a rich fusion of intellectual rigor, clinical passion, and practical moment-by-moment interventions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Affect is one of the last of the major psychological processes in psychotherapy to be focused on. This book is filled with a rich, deep understanding of how it works and how to work with it to produce lasting change. In Fosha's view, affect is the soil in which attachment grows; she demonstrates how acts of ommission and commission in caretaking interactions can lead to the unbearable pain that must be faced in therapy in order to heal. Fosha does an excellent job of applying the psychodynamic triangle of conflict to affective process, leads us through transcripts that differentiate defensive and primary adaptive core emotions, and offers strategies for facilitating emotional experience that in and of themselves make the book worth reading. -- Leslie S. Greenberg, Ph.D.

Dr. Fosha makes an original and profound contribution to the theory and technique of Short-term Psychotherapy, considerably broadening Alpert's Accelerated Empathic Therapy, out of which it has grown. Because of her poetical writing, her book is a pleasure to read: one might well imagine that Winnicott--to whom she acknowledges her debt--had come to life to write about Short-term Psychotherapy as it stands today. -- David Malan, D.M

The corporate hijackers of psychotherapy tell us we must settle -- for a little bit of change, for just symptom relief, or for the treatment of a committee-generated list of disorders. Now this remarkable book shows how much can really be accomplished, even in a brief time, if the aim is to return to the humanity of psychotherapy, to the crucial dimensions of affect and relationship. Fosha's volume is an inspiration to all therapists who wish to engage the core of feeling and humanity that is there to see in all our patients if we are brave enough and skillful enough to dare to enter. -- Paul Wachtel, Ph.D.

This is a splendid book that provides a creative synthesis of emotion theory, mother-infant research, and attachment theory and research, with principles and strategies drawn from both psychoanalytic and experiential traditions. A thoughtful guide to therapeutic intervention, it places emotion center-stage while always keeping in mind the relational matrix within which the various affective processes unfold. The result is a rich and artfully woven tapestry of ideas and therapeutic principles that will stimulate and reward clinicians of all orientations. -- Jeremy D. Safran, Ph.D.

About the Author

Diana Fosha, Ph.D., practices psychotherapy in New York, where she is Associate Clinical Professor at the Derner Institute for Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 392 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (May 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465095674
• ISBN-13: 978-0465095674
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important contribution, April 7, 2001

By 

Peter A. Levine (Lyons, Co. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Transforming Power Of Affect: A Model For Accelerated Change (Hardcover)

In this most important work Dr Fosha describes in clear prose and with engaging case material an emerging trend in the practice of effective short term psychotherapy. Her understanding and honoring of the internal landscape of the patients subjective experience and affect regulation will be an inspiration to new clinicians and a source of wisdom to seasoned veterans. Theory is presented in a clear accessible manner free of fluff and is enhanced by her lyrical narrative style.

Peter A. Levine Ph.D. Author of "Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma"

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rich In Ideas, Passionate, and Clinically Innovative, August 19, 2001

By 

Thomas M. Brod, MD (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Transforming Power Of Affect: A Model For Accelerated Change (Hardcover)

Dr. Fosha has given us the gift of an important book, which combines easy access (fine writing), leading edge concepts in relational psychology and Intensive Psychotherapy, and the most helpful texts of clinical psychotherapy examples I have ever encountered. In fact, her running commentary (pithy and informal) on video transcripts from her own treatment is the perfect voice to accompany her chapter-long (and very helpful) illustrations of how the theoretical material on attachment and emotion-affect apply in real-life psychotherapy consultions and treatment. There are also some marvelous literary quotations sprinkled around, and solid recognition of the pathfinders ahead of her, from Darwin to Davenloo.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant ! The future of pschodynamic psychotherapy starts here., February 27, 2011

By 

Alan Eppel (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Transforming Power Of Affect: A Model For Accelerated Change (Hardcover)

In this book Diana Fosha describes her method of dynamic psychotherapy which she has named Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy: AEDP. The method focuses on the experience and processing of affects in the therapy session in the context of a securely attached therapeutic relationship.

AEDP evolved from her training with Habib Davanloo who pioneered Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy. But Fosha turns his confrontational approach on its head, replacing it with a powerfully engaging and empathic therapeutic approach.

Fosha also draws on Emotion Focused Therapy [Les Greenberg] , Michael Alpert's Accelerated Empathic Therapy, and David Malan's Brief Psychotherapy.

Bowlby's Attachment Theory forms the infrastructure for an essential dyadic framework. Above all she seems to me, closest to the legendary Donald Winnicott in the poetic humanity of her treatment method.

Fosha introduces many powerful innovations to the therapeutic process. Among the most striking is the use of empathy rather than confrontation to bypass defenses. Perhaps the most original technique is meta-therapeutic processing, in which therapist and patient reflect on the impact of what has transpired between them, after each round of emotional processing.

Fosha has brilliantly pulled together and integrated some of the best therapeutic interventions to derive a most powerful new generation dynamic psychotherapy.

Essential reading for all who wish to remain at the forefront of dynamic psychotherapy.

Alan Eppel MB, FRCPC
Associate Clinical Professor Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University.