Treating Affect Phobia

This hands-on manual from Leigh McCullough and associates teaches the nuts and bolts of practicing short-term dynamic psychotherapy, the research-supported model first presented in Changing Character, McCullough's foundational text. Reflecting the ongoing evolution of the approach, the manual emphasizes "affect phobia," or conflict about feelings. It shows how such proven behavioral techniques as systemic desensitization can be applied effectively within a psychodynamic framework, and offers clear guidelines for when and how to intervene. Demonstrated are procedures for assessing patients, formulating core conflicts, and restructuring defenses, affects, and relationship to the self and others. In an easy-to-use, large-size format, the book features a wealth of case examples and write-in exercises for building key clinical skills. The companion website (www.affectphobiatherapy.com) offers useful supplemental resources, including Psychotherapy Assessment Checklist (PAC) forms and instructions.

Leigh McCullough, PhD, until her death in 2012, was Associate Clinical Professor and Director of the Psychotherapy Research Program at Harvard Medical School (Boston, Massachusetts), and a visiting professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Trondheim, Norway). She was the 1996 Voorhees Distinguished Professor at the Menninger Clinic and received the 1996 Michael Franz Basch Award from the Silvan Tomkins Institute for her contributions to the exploration of affect in psychotherapy. Dr. McCullough was on the editorial boards of Psychotherapy Research and the Journal of Brief Therapy, and conducted training seminars in Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (STDP) worldwide. Nat (Nathaniel S.) Kuhn, MD, PhD, is Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Assistant Director of the Psychotherapy Research Program at Harvard Medical School. He teaches STDP and supervises at the Cambridge Hospital and elsewhere. Dr. Kuhn has a private psychotherapy and psychiatry practice in the Boston area, and a Web site, www.natkuhn.com. Before going to medical school he was a mathematician. Stuart Andrews, PhD, is a psychotherapist in private practice in Brookline, Massachusetts, and Assistant Director of the Psychotherapy Research Program at Harvard Medical School. He has presented at international conferences and conducted training seminars on STDP. He has taught and supervised clinicians and students, and published articles on psychotherapy integration and short-term therapy. Mr. Andrews is also Director of the Center for Families in Transition, where his program, "For the Sake of the Children," is mandated in a number of communities in Massachusetts for parents going through divorce. Amelia Kaplan is a graduate student in clinical psychology at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, Rutgers University, where she pursues interests in mind-body psychology, STDP, group therapy, and human sexuality. Jonathan Wolf, MD, was a member of the Psychotherapy Research Program for three years. After graduating from Boston University School of Medicine, he entered the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Training Program. Cara Lanza Hurley, PhD, received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Loyola University Chicago in 2005.

This work is an extraordinary synthesis of depth and practicality. It is as clear, concrete, and richly exampled a treatment manual as I have seen, yet it depicts not a simple or mechanistic therapy but one that goes to the very heart of human feeling and experience. Incorporating a profoundly integrative vision, Treating Affect Phobia will be of great value not only to psychodynamically oriented therapists but to anyone in the field who appreciates the accumulating evidence for the central role of affect - and fear of affect - in our lives. - Paul L. Wachtel, PhD, Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, City College and the CUNY Graduate Center, New York