Beyond the Therapeutic Relationship: Behavioral, Biological, and Cognitive Foundations of Psychotherapy

Seeking to transfer knowledge across ideological boundaries within a theoretically valid, scientific framework, Beyond the Therapeutic Relationship draws upon and relates existing research from psychotherapy and the allied fields of human behavior. Author Frederic J. Leger has successfully cut across multifarious therapies to create an integrated, high-order theory that unites psychotherapy’s disparate forces. In the process, he addresses the theoretical underpinnings of the field of psychotherapy, the paradigm of the therapeutic relationship and its centrality to therapeutic change, the difficulties of creating a “scientific discipline” from the study of the psyche, and the factionalization of psychology into different competing schools. By exploring universal variables and how they fit into a causal nexus, Beyond the Therapeutic Relationship identifies transtheoretical processes of change that cut across diverse therapies. It also offers heuristic research direction and guidance in eclectic and integrative practice as it broadens the perspective on the psychotherapeutic encounter. Combining physiological, social, and psychological research into a transtheoretical psychodynamic theory, this important text