In The Therapeutic Encounter: a cross-modality approach Bott and Howard have presented an interesting balance between theory and practice. Particularly engaging is their metaphor of the therapeutic dance between therapist and client which leads to the enactment of the problem-saturated story brought by the client. They devote separate chapters to six captivating examples from clinical practice, each with a particularly nuanced commentary fitting the case. An intriguing read, that will be of interest to trainees and practicing therapists alike -
Professor Maria Gilbert, Joint Head of Integrative Department, Metanoia Institute
Many years ago I came across the concept of crossing over into other ways of seeing, not to adopt those ways of seeing, but in order to get a real perspective on ones own. Other ways of seeing inform our own, and often help us discover lost aspects or not yet discovered aspects of our own. The themes in this book clearly demonstrate how much that applies to psychotherapy and counselling models. See things from the perspective of other modalities, and you may well discover something startling about your own -
Michael Jacobs, Visiting professor, Bournemouth and Leeds Universities
Some books are before their time and some are written too late, but The Therapeutic Encounter is a book just in time. With a firm grasp of the unifying potential of relational process thinking, Bott and Howard deftly cut across the territories of the usual therapeutic modalities, flexibly shifting from theoretical frame to theoretical frame in order to reveal and act upon the stubborn particulars of each therapeutic scenario. The key insight - enabling the avoidance of theoretical chauvinism and easy eclecticism alike - is the organising principle of a series of dilemmas, contradictions and paradoxes which constitute ambivalent hotspots around which the narratives which pattern our lives are constructed. In prose which brings their cases to vivid emotional life, Bott and Howard show how these enduring themes of experience are both the root of recurrent problems and the source of novel solutions. This insight forms the common ground that allows psychoanalysts to communicate with systems theorists and person centred practitioners with narrative therapists. The result is not a training manual, but a timely intervention destined to calmly guide the counselling and psychotherapy community through its own current crisis of transition -
Paul Stenner, Professor of Social Psychology, The Open University
