Personality and Psychotherapy - Treating the Whole Person – The Guilford Press PDF
Preview Personality and Psychotherapy - Treating the Whole Person – The Guilford Press
PERSONALITY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY Personality and Psychotherapy Treating the Whole Person JEFFERSON A. SINGER THE GUILFORD PRESS New York London For Anne, Olivia, and Chloe © 2005 The Guilford Press A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc. 72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012 www.guilford.com All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher. Printed in the United States of America This book is printed on acid-free paper. Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Singer, Jefferson A. Personality and psychotherapy : treating the whole person / Jefferson A. Singer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-59385-211-8 1. Client-centered psychotherapy. I. Title. RC481.S54 2005 616.89′14—dc22 2005010751 About the Author Jefferson A. Singer, PhD, is a professor of psychology at Con- necticut College in New London, Connecticut, and a clinical psycholo- gist with a private practice in Waterford, Connecticut. He has written two previous books, The Remembered Self: Emotion and Memory in Personality (with Peter Salovey) and Message in a Bottle: Stories of Men and Addiction, as well as numerous articles, chapters, and reviews on clinical psychology and personality and memory. Dr. Singer is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, past associate editor of the Journal of Personality, and the 2005 recipient of the Theodore R. Sarbin Award for Theoretical Contributions to Psychology, presented by Divi- sion 24 (Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology) of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Singer lives in West Hartford, Connecti- cut, with his wife, Anne, and their two daughters, Olivia and Chloe. v Preface Preface I hope in this book to fill a major gap in the training and knowl- edge base of psychotherapists, including clinical psychologists, counsel- ing psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and marriage and family counselors. Training in these fields has not kept up with rapid advances in the field of personality psychology in the last 20 years. Just as we have seen remarkable progress in neuroscience and cognitive science, there have been significant strides made in the study of personality that have left older textbooks obsolete and many current ones no longer cutting- edge. Yet even the most up-to-date textbooks in personality are not de- signed to connect the research they describe to the needs and concerns of the practicing therapist. The goal of this volume is to help therapists, therapists-in-training, and the instructors in charge of their training close this gap and become familiar with some of the most important contemporary personality re- search. By providing case material drawn from research participants as well as clients from my own practice, I demonstrate the relevance and utility of personality psychology for the understanding and effective treatment of clients in psychotherapy. To accomplish this endeavor, I take readers systematically through Dan McAdams’s three-domain frame- work of personality research, which has become a major way of organizing the field of personality psychology. It provides insight into individuals from the perspective of their stable traits (Domain 1); social-cognitive adaptations, such as goals and defenses (Domain 2); and life stories or personal narratives (Domain 3). In addition to these three domains, I also offer readers a review of advances in relational psychotherapy that vi Preface vii emphasize the embeddedness of the individual personality in a network of intimate relationships and cultural influences. Throughout the presen- tation of this material, my main objective is to illustrate its value for a deeper and more insightful understanding of the clients with whom we work in psychotherapy. This last sentence points to a more philosophical commitment that helps to explain the subtitle of this book—“treating the whole person.” In this era of managed care, manualized treatments, and pharmaco- therapy, there is still a need for psychotherapy that takes on “problems of living,” including the pursuit of self-understanding, improved inter- personal relationships, and the realization of meaning and purpose in one’s life. Although these therapeutic challenges do not easily fall into di- agnostic categories within the medical model, any working therapist knows that they constitute a large part of the struggles that clients bring to the hours we share with them. Increasingly, therapists feel defensive about this kind of therapeutic activity, which seems somehow less legiti- mate than the treatment of specified symptoms or biological disorders. To treat an individual’s struggle to understand the meaning of a particu- lar memory or to point out ambivalence in the pursuit of a seemingly de- sirable goal seems less “scientific” or “efficacious” than to provide a set of concrete homework assignments and focused exercises to remediate a symptom. Although there is much value in these latter treatment ap- proaches (and I often employ these strategies in my own work), I am concerned that they are at risk for edging out an equally valid kind of therapy that is more exploratory and meaning-oriented. Often the grounds for privileging cognitive-behavioral or biological treatments over therapies that focus more on meaning and insight are their adherents’ claims of a more solid scientific foundation to support their practice. What I hope to show in this volume is that this conclusion is a misreading of the current scientific evidence. Contemporary person- ality psychology does in fact provide a strong foundation of research support for therapies that put questions of meaning, self-understanding, and socioemotional growth at the center of their enterprise. Practitioners equipped with the empirical and interpretative advances promulgated by personality psychology need not feel defensive about their commitment to treating the whole person. Although many of us may feel intuitively that such concerns are critical to our purpose as healers, this volume provides an extensive body of research to support this inclination. We should all be grateful for the remarkable achievements that the medical model has brought to the treatment of mental health, but it is also heart- ening to know that progress continues in the realms of life that lie slightly outside the spheres of disease and disorder. This volume is dedi- cated to this aspect of therapy—a person-based psychology and psycho- viii Preface therapy that values memories, dreams, life stories, meanings, insights, and relationships in the service of enhanced self-knowledge and quality of life where the end points are often equal measures of happiness and wisdom. The genesis of this work grew out of conversations with Phyllis Wentworth of Blackwell Press. Although I ended up taking the book in a different direction than we originally envisioned, I am grateful for her suggestion that I write a book that would link my interests in personality psychology and psychotherapy. Seymour Weingarten of The Guilford Press saw the potential that this book might have to meet the needs of practitioners and students to catch up on advances in personality psy- chology at the same time that they are engaging in a daily fight to defend the person in psychotherapy. Seymour is one of the constant positive in- fluences in the psychology publishing world, and it is simply a statement of fact that my course syllabi continue to be filled with Guilford’s titles. Jim Nageotte has been a graceful and gracious editor who has applied thoughtful guidance throughout the process. This book steadily im- proved under his direction and sensitive scrutiny. Jacquelyn Coggin was an able and exacting copy editor, and Jennifer DePrima provided effi- cient oversight of the book’s production. In writing a book that takes a position not entirely in sync with the mainstream, it is critical to have colleagues who share your vision of the field and support your efforts to articulate it. I am very much indebted to my fellow members of the Society of Personology, an organization de- voted to the study of individuals and their lives. In particular, I am grate- ful to Nicole Barenbaum, Dan McAdams, and Mac Runyan, who en- gaged in discussions about and/or reviewed drafts of chapters in this volume that are relevant to their work. I must particularly acknowledge Dan for providing the field with the elegant framework that is the back- bone to much of the work presented in the chapters that follow. A large part of the writing of this book took place over a sabbatical year, generously granted to me by Connecticut College. I am grateful to President Norman Fainstein and Helen Regan and Fran Hoffman, the past and present deans of the faculty, for this privilege. The chair of the psychology department, Stuart Vyse, its administrator, Nancy MacLeod, and the rest of my outstanding departmental colleagues have been a con- tinuing source of support and encouragement throughout the writing process. Other professional colleagues, who are also good friends— Robert Emmons, Robert Giebisch, Gary Greenberg, and Barbara Woike— have been stalwart advisors and supporters. I am blessed to have two friends, Lawrence Vogel of the philosophy department at Connecticut College, and Rand Cooper, a writer, critic, and editor, who live within minutes of my home and who have provided helpful feedback and en- couragement throughout every phase of this process. Preface ix I am very much indebted to both the United States and United King- dom Fulbright Commissions for granting me an opportunity to work on writing and research relevant to this book at Durham University in Dur- ham, England. My sponsor was Martin Conway, who was a great source of intellectual stimulation and a wonderful host to my family and me. I am also grateful for the help and friendship of Malcolm Rolling, who oversaw my many different technical and logistical needs during my stay at Durham. Malcolm and the rest of the psychology department staff made sure that I could have a comfortable and quiet space for writing throughout my time there. This book took shape as I developed and taught a course entitled “Seminar in Personality Research” at Connecticut College in the fall of 2002 and again in the fall of 2004. I owe an incalculable debt to “Jennifer,” the student who volunteered to participate in a personality assessment and then agreed to allow her protocol to be used in this vol- ume. I must also acknowledge the meticulous and sensitive work of Natalie McEachern, a student in the fall 2002 seminar, who collected Jennifer’s personality data and conducted the initial analyses of her re- sponses. I would like to thank all of the students who took part in these seminars and, in particular the fall 2004 group, who provided invaluable feedback on chapter drafts: Jenna Baddeley, Kate Bogart, Hilary Garri- son-Botsford, Liana Guzman, Samantha Lee, Dov Markowitz, Blerim Rexhaj, Alexa Xanthopoulous, and Lydia Willsky. I must especially sin- gle out Jenna Baddeley, who has worked as my research assistant on this book. She has been a great sounding board and tireless worker in bring- ing this project to completion. Any book that draws on clinical experience owes a huge debt to the clients who provide the actual examples of struggle and insight that make up the psychotherapeutic process. As always, I stand in awe of their strength and courage. An additional acknowledgment must go to “Doug and Karen,” the couple who granted me permission to describe their therapy in the final chapter. Finally, I must thank my family. My parents, Jerome and Dorothy Singer, both psychologists, have served as role models throughout my professional career in their commitment to the integration of research and practice. My brother Bruce, who is currently enrolled in a profes- sional psychology doctoral program and once asked me what might be a good personality book for therapists to read, is certainly a chief inspira- tion for this book. My oldest brother, Jon, now the only family member who is not a psychologist, has the patience of Job to put up with the monotonous direction that recent family conversations tend to take. Speaking of patience, there must be an infinite supply somewhere that has been tapped by my wife, Anne, and my two daughters, Olivia and Chloe. They have endured countless mornings, evenings, and weekends x Preface with the sight of Dad working on yet another draft of “that personality and therapy book” in front of the computer monitor. Each time that I set aside my work to join my life with theirs, I find again the secret to what makes me a whole person and to the fullest meaning and purpose that all of life might offer.
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