The originator of the field of psychotherapy, Sigmund Freud, noted the importance of love in the healing of the human psyche. So many of life's distresses have their origins in lack of love, disruption of love, or trauma. People naturally seek love in their lives to feel complete. Is therapy a substitute for love? Or is it love by another name? This important book looks at the place of love in therapy and whether it is the curative factor. The authors continually stress whoever that within psychotherapy both ethical and professional boundaries should govern this "Love" at all times in order for it to be experienced as healing and therapeutic. This book offers explorations of the complexity of love from different modalities: psychoanalytic, humanistic, person-centered, psychosexual, family and systemic, transpersonal, existential, and transcultural. The discussions challenge therapists and other allied professionals to think about their practice, ethics, and boundaries especially when considering the proposals to accept the therapeutic relationship in terms of "Love", or when exploring the complexities of the impact of love/lack of love on clients' lives and experiences and how this impacts on their behavior, presentation, and the material they present in the therapy room. About the Editors: Divine Charura is a Senior Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy at Leeds Beckett University. He is an adult psychotherapist who works in the NHS, voluntary sector, and in private practice. He is also an independent trainer, supervisor, and coach. Divine has been a key note speaker at different conferences and continues to give lectures and to facilitate training in different areas of psychotherapy, including the importance of love and attachment in psychological well-being and lifelong development. He has published various papers and book chapters. Divine is also a keen saxophone player and is passionate about music, poetry, art, photography and outdoor pursuits. Stephen Paul recently retired as Director of the Center for Psychological Therapies at Leeds Metropolitan University (now Leeds Beckett University). He is a client-centered psychotherapist, and co-editor of The Therapeutic Relationship: Themes and Perspectives (with Sheila Haugh, 2008). His published work includes chapters on love, spirituality and therapy, as well as on coaching and group therapy. Stephen has worked in both adult and child and adolescent psychiatry. He opened one of the first independent counselling centers in the UK, in Bradford, in 1978, and has been head of a therapeutic school and director of the VSO program in Bhutan. He now writes, practices therapy, supervision and coaching, and provides training. |