Full Description
Aggregating 46 years of research, this book proposes a fresh approach on how to conduct assessment and therapy using autobiographical memories. It offers a system to identify and deconstruct major lifetime memories and shows how clinicians can work with the content of these memories to help clients better understand past events as present events are filtered through them.
Dr. Bruhn's first book on this subject, Earliest Childhood Memories: Theory and Application to Clinical Practice (1990), illustrated what could be learned about clients' present situation from the Early Memories Procedure (EMP), which is designed to identify and explore autobiographical memories of problematic experiences in therapy. The present book, which builds upon Dr. Bruhn's work with incarcerated women and male parolees, shows what can be done with these key memories by working directly on them in therapy. Dr. Bruhn showcases a new insight-oriented treatment paradigm, "memories work," to help resolve the issues identified in EMP responses. Chapters offer an alternative view of processing trauma and explore each facet of using memories work to design mental health interventions with clients. Included throughout are detailed case studies and techniques to re-engineer dysfunctional perceptions.
Clinicians and therapists will come away with the tools necessary to use memories work successfully with clients.
Contents
Statement of Purpose
About the Author
Abstract
Foreword by Henry J. Richards
How Memories Work Began
Acknowledgment
An Introduction to Clinically Oriented Autobiographical Memory
1 A Theory of Psychopathology Is Fundamental to Psychotherapy
2 Analyzing Early Memories Is Like Learning a New Language and a New Operating System
3 A Diagnostic System That Focuses on Where a Client Is Stuck Helps Us Craft More Precise Interventions
4 When We Don't Understand a Client's Needs, We Can Cause Damage
5 Bergson's Dilemma, or How Utility Actually Operates
6 Memories Are Programmed by the Mind
7 The Mind Affects the Body Even as the Body Affects the Mind
8 Writing Memories Down Without Discussing Them May Facilitate Understanding
9 "Instant Cures" in "Therapy"
10 A Scoring System Is Needed to Categorize Autobiographical Memories
11 It Is Impossible to Treat Criminals with Insight-Oriented Psychotherapy . . . True?
12 Conclusions
References
Case Study
Appendix A: Content and Process Themes, CEMSS-R
Appendix B: Press Release of NIDA Study Results
