Read more
The Power of Specificity in Psychotherapy: When Therapy Works-And When It Doesn't presents specificity theory, a contemporary process theory of psychotherapy that holds that each therapist-patient dyad constitutes a unique reciprocal system, challenging us to reconsider how psychotherapy is optimally practiced and taught. The perspectives of specificity theory are corroborated by cutting-edge findings in neurobiology and infant research and alter traditional views of how we understand and utilize "theory," "response," and "relationship" in both treatment and training.
About the author
Howard A. Bacal, MD, is a training and supervising analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and at the New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles, and supervising analyst at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity and the National Training Program in Contemporary Psychoanalysis in New York. He has a private practice in Los Angeles, California. He is co-author of Theories of Object Relations: Bridges to Self Psychology, and editor of Optimal Responsiveness: How Therapists Heal Their Patients. Lucyann Carlton, PsyD, JD, is a training and supervising analyst at the Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles, and she has a private practice in Irvine, California.
