About the Book
This book presents a comprehensive guide to applying Meier and Boivin's Self-in-Relationship Psychotherapy model to clinical work with individuals, couples, families and children.
The central theme of the book is that the paradigm of affects, cognitive processes and behaviors that informs current psychotherapy approaches needs to be broadened to include core self, relational and physical intimacy needs as motivating factors in psychotherapy. Drawing on multiple influences including relational psychoanalysis, the authors illustrate how to work with core needs when providing therapy to children and adults. They establish that core needs are universal, and their realizations are essential for healthy living and argue that clients achieve the healthiest outcomes by finding a way to balance the self alongside their relations with others. The concept of core self, relational and physical intimacy needs is what binds all the chapters in this book and makes it unique among psychotherapy approaches.
With a clear transtheoretical approach and rich clinical vignettes, this book is core reading for any psychotherapists, psychoanalyst, or practicing psychologists.
Table of Contents:
Part 1: Individual Psychotherapy 1. Self-in-Relationship Psychotherapy: A Comprehensive Overview 2. Armand: Recovery from Major Depressive Disorder 3.Tania – Obsessions and Compulsions: Assessment and Conceptualization 4.‘Tania – Obsessions and Compulsions: Treatment’ Part 2: Couple and Family Therapy 5. Self-in-Relationship Couple and Family Psychotherapy (SIRCFP) 6.Case Illustration: Daniel and Sylvie Part 3: Parent-Child Therapy 7. Self-in-Relationship Child Psychotherapy 8. Case Illustrations: André and Louis 9.“It’s Mine!”: Helping a Four-Year Old Girl to be Autonomous 10. Philosophical Foundations
About the Author :
Augustine Meier is a certified clinical psychologist, individual, couple and family psychotherapist, clinical researcher, author and professor Emeritus at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada. He is the founder of the Institute for Self-in-Relationship Psychotherapy.
Micheline Boivin is a certified clinical psychologist, child, parent, and family psychotherapist, clinical researcher, and author, and based in Ottawa, Canada. She is a Board Member of the Institute for Self-in-Relationship Psychotherapy.
Review :
"In the current volume, esteemed clinicians Augustine Meier & Micheline Boivin continue their innovative therapeutic model first published in Self-in-Relationship Psychotherapy: A Complete Clinical Guide to Theory and Practice (2022). The unique characteristic of SIRP is the inclusion of core relational (need for emotional connection and autonomy), self (need for significance and competency), and physical intimacy needs (need for sensual contact and sexual intimacy) in its assessment, conceptualization, and treatment of individuals, couples, and children. A rare and exceptionally rich clinical model bridging various schools of thought seamlessly, both conceptually and clinically. A must-read for all practicing clinicians."
Loray Daws, PhD, clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, International Masterson Institute, Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, New York
"The chapters that illustrate the application of SIRP with children provide further evidence that play therapy is a useful approach to help ameliorate children’s distress. With a clear focus on children’s core needs (relational, self, and physical intimacy needs), the authors show how play therapy techniques such as story-telling, puppet play, guided imagery, sand and dollhouse play, and metaphors, encourage children to express their thoughts and feelings in a developmentally appropriate way. In addition, the integration of play therapy to advance treatment goals within the context of this promising theory, appears to provide a useful way of helping children achieve mastery and resolve a range of intra- and interpersonal behavioral and social-emotional difficulties. I thoroughly enjoyed the well articulated case conceptualizations, the systemic lens, and highly specific treatment goals that area advanced using expressive therapies."
Eliana Gil, Ph.D., Founder and Partner, GIL Institute for Trauma Recovery and Education, Fairfax, VA.
"To bring about significant and lasting change in your clients, I recommend you not only read (official title of book) but study and apply the profound teachings contained in it. We need to go beyond our common approach to therapy and bring about valuable transformations with individuals, couples and families. This book will help you achieve transformational success. I highly recommend it. Congratulations."
John Banmen, R. Psych., co-author, The Satir Model: family therapy and beyond, director of training emeritus, Satir Institute of the Pacific, professor emeritus, University of British Columbia, Canada.
