Download Author: Kupers, Terry A. M.D.

21 eBooks available.

The Brief Therapy Alternative

There are three reasons for including a chapter on brief therapy in this discussion of termination. First, the time limits imposed by brief therapists tend to exaggerate certain termination issues. Second, it is an opportunity to make the discussion of termination more inclusive. The third reason for including a chapter on brief therapy is that it serves to expose the contradiction between the clinical logic of termination and the fact that means more than clinical condition seem to determine the length of one’s therapy.

Therapy in Pieces

More and more, clients enter therapy wishing to work through one or another circumscribed issue, end the therapy when they feel satisfied with the immediate results, and then return to be in therapy again when another crisis arises. It is hard to say which came first, the brief therapy or the pattern whereby more and more people begin to utilize therapy in pieces over a life time. Whichever it is, the whole meaning of termination changes.

The Community of Therapy Consumers

The growth of a community of willing therapy consumers significantly influences the way termination is theorized and conducted. Therefore the discussion of termination must take into account the culture of therapy consumption.

Freud on Termination

Freud could be brilliant in his theoretical discussion of termination—an abstract discussion about when the natural point to end arrives—but he seemed less capable of helping his analysands with their actual feelings about the loss.

The Termination of Psychoanalysis after Freud

This chapter is in two parts: the first deals with specific developments on termination as expressed in the literature, the second with changes in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis that radically alter the meaning of termination.

The Clinical Logic of Termination

This chapter will serve as the transition from the purely clinical discussion to one that integrates the clinical and the social levels. The concept of a clinical logic touches on both.

Pornography and Intimacy

As a therapist, I listen without judging, and try to understand the problems in a man’s life—they are almost always in the area of intimacy—that he believes will be solved by his resorting to pornography. What does their process in the consulting room teach us about ways to transcend the pornographic imagination? (47 pp.)

The Conscientious Father and the Unappreciative Son

I have seen several fathers in my office recently who were distraught over being rejected or physically or verbally assaulted by an almost grown or young adult son. These men take very seriously their responsibility as fathers. They were all caught off guard by their sons’ attack or rejection, and felt hurt and unappreciated. The initial aim of therapy with these men is to understand why they react as they do to what they experience as a betrayal.

Men in Therapy

More men are appearing in therapists’ offices than ever before. Some men immediately enter into power struggles with the therapist, some have a difficult time figuring out what to say and how to behave. I will discuss these two all too typical developments, describe a men’s therapy group, and argue that friendship is an important issue to explore in therapy, particularly during the termination phase.

(47 pp.)