Self-Narratives: The Construction of Meaning in Psychotherapy
Hubert J.M. Hermans & Els Hermans-Jansen
New York: Guilford Press, 1995 (306 pages)
From the cover:
Hubert J.M. Hermans and Els Hermans-Jansen elaborate a model of the clinical use of self-narratives - the stories that people use to construct meaning out of the events of their lives - in counseling and psychotherapy. Based on extensive case studies and filled with a rich variety of illustrative examples, this integrative work covers the model's theory, methodology, and clinical applications.
In using this model, the client's narrative becomes the core of each therapy session. When a client tells a personal story, he or she gives special significance to certain events, which illuminates personal meanings. The therapist works collaboratively with the client to analyze the content and organization of these stories. As stories are told and retold over time, changes in the client's concerns, problems, and goals, which forms the basis for the therapeutic process.
Chapters describe how clinicians can work with what is openly discussed, and how to ascertain less conscious events and motives. In laying out the model, a framework is provided for better understanding the interrelationships of diverse phenomena such as autonomy, love, anger, unfulfilled longing, powerlessness, and isolation. Specific treatment strategies are detailed for forms of dissociation and dysfunctional personal meanings, including those associated with depression, overdependence, grandiosity, hopelessness, helplessness, and hostility. Finally, the book provides an overview of lifelong development of the basic motives (self-enhancement and the desire for contact and union with others), paying particular attention to the notion of transition and crisis.
A special section comprises a detailed manual that provides suggestions for adapting and extending the method. Moreover, guidelines are included for the novice psychologist, who may perform a self-investigation and become aware of the pitfalls of countertransference.
A powerful clinical tool that enhances cooperation between the client and therapist, the model delineated in this volume can be used in a wide variety of settings and is easily integrated with a range of orientations. Providing complete guidelines for its clinical use, Self-Narratives is an ideal resource for psychotherapists and counselors alike. Teachers or trainers who want to educate students in self-knowledge and self-reflection will find here an ideal method for stimulating these processes.
From Contemporary Psychology:
. . . relatively few works promise to make a distinctive and enduring contribution to the therapeutic landscape. Hermans and Hermans-Jansen's Self-Narratives: The construction of meaning in psychotherapy is one such work. Self-Narratives provides a theoretically grounded, systematically derived, and empirically oriented approach to assessing human meaning, features that have arguably remained unrivaled in an approach since the unveiling of George Kelly's personal construct psychology more than 40 years ago. . . not only for the distinctiveness of its contributions, but also for the likely generativity of its method, Self-Narratives promises to make an enduring contribution to the rapidly developing field of constructivism and psychotherapy (Neimeyer & Hagans, 1997, p. 597).
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1. The person as motivated storyteller: Basic metaphor
Chapter 2. The self as an organized process of meaning construction
Chapter 3. The self-confrontation method: Constructing and reconstructing one's self-narrative
Chapter 4. The nature of valuation: Structure and process
Chapter 5. Dreams and myths: Routes to the less conscious areas of the self
Chapter 6. Dissociations and dysfunctions
Chapter 7. Motivational characteristics of the self: Lifelong development
Chapter 8. Summary and perspective
Chapter 9. Manual
Appendix 1. Extended list of questions
Appendix 2. Extended list of affect terms
Appendix 3. Information for those who are interested in learning the method
References
Index
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