The Courage to Love: Principles and Practices of Self-Relations Psychotherapy / Edition 1

by Stephen Gilligan

Overview

This is a book about how psychotherapy may be used to cultivate the courage and freedom to love.

In a time when love seems to be fading and hatred and despair rising, it presents love as a skill and force that can heal and invigorate, reconnect and guide, calm and encourage. In Gilligan's self-relations approach, psychotherapy is a conversation about competing differences. When these differences are treated violently or indifferently, problems arise; solutions develop when the skills of love are practiced. Those practical skills are described here, with an emphasis on postconventional ethics, Buddhist and aikido principles, and ideas of human sponsorship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393702477
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/17/1997
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D. is a Psychologist in Encinitas, CA. He was one of the original NLP students at UC Santa Cruz, with Milton Erickson and Gregory Bateson as his mentors. After receiving his psychology doctorate from Stanford University, he became one of the premier teachers and practitioners of Ericksonian hypnotherapy. This work unfolded into his original approaches of Self-Relations and Generative Self, and then further (in collaboration with Robert Dilts) into Generative Coaching. He has taught in many different cultures and countries over the past 30 years, and has published extensively.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction
I. PRINCIPLES
1. A River Runs through It:Basic Premises of the Relational Self
Premise 1: An indestructible "tender soft spot" exists at the core of each person
Premise 2: Life moves through you, except when it doesn't
Premise 3: Life is great, but sometimes it hurts like hell
Premise 4: There are two of you:
Relationship is the basic psychological unit
Premise 5: An intelligence greater than you exists in the world
Premise 6: Your path is yours alone: You are an incurable deviant
Summary
2. Attention and the Relationship between
Differences: How Do You Deal with the Other?
Holding too tight: The fear and fury of fundamentalism
Holding too loose: The indifference and addiction of consumerism
Not too tight, not too loose: The felt connection of the relational self
Summary
3. The Relational Self: Identity, Problem Formation, and Problem Resolution
A question of identity: Who are you?
A self-relations model of how symptoms develop
Summary
II. PRACTICES
4. Return from Exile: Practices for Mind-Nature Coordination
Breathing awareness and muscle relaxation
Centering attention
Opening attention
Cleansing the doors of perception
Summary
5. Love as a Skill: The Practices of Sponsorship
A prototype exercise: Who are you?
Skills of sponsorship
A modified practice of tonglen
Summary
III. THERAPY METHODS
6. The Reparation of Relatedness: A Prototype for Self-Relations Work
Step 1: Identify the problem
Step 2: Identify and somatically locate the neglected self
Step 3: Activate and locate the cognitive self
Step 4: Identify and differentiate negative sponsors
Step 5: Connect cognitive self and neglected (somatic) self
Step 6: Return to original problem sequence
Step 7: Further work
Summary
7. The Archetypal Self: We Get by with a Little Help from Our Friends
Basic idea about archetypes
A clinical model for working with archetypes
The therapist's use of archetypal energies
Summary
8. Therapeutic Rituals: Passages into New Identities
What are rituals?
A therapy approach to using rituals
Summary
Epilogue
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

Discusses how psychotherapy can be used to cultivate the courage and freedom to love. Presents love as a skill and force that can heal, invigorate, reconnect, guide, calm, and encourage the reader. Presents general theoretical and ethical principles of self-relations psychotherapy, describes the basic practices of implementing the therapy, and outlines different self-relations therapy methods, including archetypal process and therapeutic rituals. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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