Customer Reviews

What Therapists Don't Talk about and Why: Understanding Taboos That Hurt Us and Our Clients

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the MOST PRACTICAL book on boundaries and ethics I have read in any language. It is an ideal text for professional training programs in psychology or other mental health fields. But it is also something one could use to guide practicing clinicians and/or plan inservice training. Last but not least, for the consumer who is wondering what "the rules are," this is far easier to understand than an ethics code. Nothing available in the professional literature can match this contribution by three widely acknowledged leaders in the field who have provided a virtual cornucopia of useful guidance. They cover many vital things including some rarely discussed. It's worth many times its price. This is the first book I think which could actually be used as a text in a professional training program which is seeking to truly cover the realities of the practice that their students face in the future.

In graduate training, we are trained to follow ethical principles, but discussions are limited. Students and professors seem afraid to openly discuss the taboo topics, like therapist feelings of fear, anger, hatred, and sexual attraction. This book provides the context for open, respectful, and insightful discussions in graduate-level ethics courses. Thank you, Dr. Pope!

This book is a must read for any psychotherapist. It explores the real
world and often secret problems encountered in clinical practice in a
creative, personal and very useful fashion. In this world of increasing
professional accountability and liability, clinicians can be assured that
their practices will be much better off for having implemented the common
sense suggestions made by the authors.
Jeffrey N. Younggren, Ph.D., ABPP
Risk Management Consultant
American Psychological Association Insurance Trust

The variety of sensitive issues that psychotherapists must deal with are addressed in this stimulating book. In a respectful context, the authors challenge us to address a variety of topics that are almost never discussed in training, supervision, or consultation study groups among psychotherapists. This reading provides a wealth of topics and guidelines for thinking through issues such as, what to do during a psychotherapy session when we feel distracted, annoyed, drowsy or sexually aroused? What to do when personal values differ significantly from those of our clients/patients? Many more interesting taboo topics are addressed! I am recommending that my feminist therapy study group read this book for discussion!

This is one of those 'wish I could have read it my first
day in grad school' books. The topics this volume covers are the forbidden
ones that every therapist struggles with; reading this book is like having a
wise, compassionate, thoughtful teacher and consultant who gets you to think
and feel, critically and deeply, about the strange human thing we call
psychotherapy. I'll be recommending it to my students and colleagues. If you teach student therapists you should be including this in any professional development class.

If you're in the mental health field or preparing for a career in it, this book raises a lot of excellent questions that you'll want to think through. I wish it provided more answers, but I understand that its purpose is to raise the issues so you can think through them for yourself.

This book certainly raises lots of issues not covered in school and provides a logical and ethical methodology to thinking through, however the book falls short of suggested resolutions that the therapist may entertain. The book is well written and clearly laid out but I was left feeling many "endings" were left off. I am faced with decision trees that involve ethics daily in my practise but I would like to have some insight into what my colleagues decision trees look like. I can always raise the ethical questions myself. Overall good reading but not a book I would reference. The book would be good reading for group discussion.

This is a very much needed book that would hopefully motivate many therapists to accept themselves as humans and to know their limitations. However, it did give me a sense that the author was trying to create a "cook book" despite him saying that it was not his intend. It felt as if he was trying to predict every possible case scenario instead of raising a more fundamental question such as what therapy work is and what it is not? I believe, it is more important to have this fundamental discussion instead of concentrating on countless little details, because many taboo topics come from therapists' mindless attitude toward their work in general, when they cannot define for themselves what therapy is, how it promotes healing and what therapeutic relationship is and isn't.

The info given is interesting but then again, it is the negative spin on everything
so while I find it very informative I can only read it in small doses and then have
to pull out my life is a bowl of sunshine daydreams. blessings I think it's worth the read