Depth Oriented Brief Therapy: How to Be Brief When You Were Trained to Be Deep and Vice Versa - Hardcover

by Bruce Ecker (Author), Laurel Hulley (Author)

Reach a new stage in brief therapy

Is it possible for clinicians to provide in-depth therapy in the cost-conscious, time-limited world of managed care?

This groundbreaking book offers clinicians new hope of maintaining professional satisfaction in time-effective practice. Authors Bruce Ecker and Laurel Hulley provide a practical guide for clinicians on how to work deeply and briefly with individuals, couples, and families, and shows how to meet the challenge of managed care without losing the deeper levels of change traditionally associated with long-term or existential work.

By using Depth-Oriented Brief Therapy, you'll work directly and immediately with the emotional and unconscious meanings that structure the very existence of the presenting problem.

Front Jacket

As the demand for time-limited, demonstrably effective psychotherapy increasingly dominates the mental health professions, many therapists are caught between this demand and their aversion to brief therapy, which they see as sacrificing vital qualities of the work--the depth and durability of resolution reached, the thoroughness of change in the emotional and unconscious basis of the problem, the trust-based client-therapist relationship. These therapists are asking: Is it possible for clinicians to provide in-depth therapy in the cost-conscious, time-limited world of managed care? In this groundbreaking book, authors Bruce Ecker and Laurel Hulley show how to work directly and immediately with the emotional and unconscious meanings that structure the very existence of the presenting problem, making in-depth therapy so effective as to be brief. This book represents a new stage in brief therapy and offers clinicians new hope of maintaining professional satisfaction in time-effective practice.From start to finish, this book is a practical guide to working deeply and briefly with individuals, couples, and families and includes: a clear and complete methodology and conceptual framework for producing lasting change beyond symptom relief a compAndium of specific techniques for depth-oriented brief therapy how to work time-effectively with clients whose presenting symptoms are driven by unresolved, lifelong emotional wounds abundant case examples with clients who suffer from a wide range of presenting symptoms, such as low self-esteem, chronic depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, agoraphobia, symbiotic attachment, dissociation, psychogenic pain, and sequelae of sexual abuse.Depth-Oriented Brief Therapy is written for therapists, psychologists, counselors, social workers, psychiatrists, and other helping professionals who want to meet the challenge of managed care without losing the deeper levels of change traditionally associated with long-term

Back Jacket

In this groundbreaking book, authors Bruce Ecker and Laurel Hulley show how to work directly and immediately with the emotional and unconscious meanings that structure the very existence of the presenting problem, making in-depth therapy so effective as to be brief. Depth-Oriented Brief Therapy represents a new stage in brief therapy and offers clinicians new hope of maintaining professional satisfaction in the time-effective practice demanded by today s managedcare environment.

"This is a brilliant, breakthrough book. Ecker and Hulley have created a psychotherapy which is at once analytic, phenomenological, and experiential, based not only on this integration, but on recent developments in cognitive science. This innovative context raises each of these fields to new levels of efficacy and depth. Accessible, nonpathologizing language, sophisticated yet profoundly simple theory, and powerful therapeutic process combine to make this work of the highest significance. I have rarely been this impressed."
--STEPHEN M. JOHNSON, PHD, author of Character Styles, The Symbiotic Character, Humanizing the Narcissistic Style, and Characterological Transformation.

"A challenging, precise, and exciting approach to therapy that will delight those therapists who celebrate and cherish the complexity of clients. Ecker and Hulley combine a thoughtful attention to the unconscious with a commitment to making every session count. Gutsy, convincing, and powerful!"
--DAVID B. WATERS, PHD, professor of family practice and psychiatry, University of Virginia, and author of Competence, Courage, and Change

"This book offers creative examples of how constructivism can be applied in clinical practice. The authors show how an experiential approach to felt meanings can help clients explore alternative personal realities. This is recommended reading."
--MICHAEL J. MAHONEY, PHD, professor of psychology, University of North Texas, and author of Human Change Processes

Author Biography

BRUCE ECKER is a psychotherapist in private practice, teaches brief therapy at John F. Kennedy University, and is a clinical staff trainer at numerous mental health agencies. He is the coauthor of Spiritual Choices: The Problem of Recognizing Authentic Paths to Inner Transformation (1987). His work in psychotherapy follows a lengthy career in physics research. LAUREL HULLEY is in private practice and as Director of Clinical Training for Pacific Seminars develops and designs professional trainings in depth-oriented brief therapy. The authors, based in Oakland, California, are the originators of depth-oriented bried therapy.