Resource Focused Counselling and Psychotherapy: An Introduction

195 Pages·2017·1.864 MB·English

by  Michael Wilson

Resource Focused Counselling and
Psychotherapy
Therapists sometimes ask: What supports you in life? What gets you through
difficulttimes?Our‘journey’inlifereliesonarangeofresourcestoequipand
fulfil us. Knowing about these resources, however, is not enough: for lasting
benefits, they must be bodily felt experiences. The aim of this book is to
illustrate the holistic purpose of therapy to resource integration of the client.
It draws upon extensive material to affirm that the practice of contemporary
therapy benefits from insights gained from evolving neuroscience. Particular
emphasis is put on the benefits of drawing on the dimensions of experience to
strengthen ego processes like self-awareness and self-regulation, and engage
with the depths of being, including ‘soul’.
Resource Focused Counselling and Psychotherapy provides professionals
with a comprehensive and integrative model of resource focused therapy,
drawing upon clinical examples and the current range of research and theory
surrounding this emerging approach. Additionally, the book contains a range
of self-resourcing exercises and practices for each part of the integrative
model,enabling individualstodevelopself-resourcesforgreaterresilienceand
well-being in theirown lives.
This book is an important read for psychotherapists, psychologists and
counsellors, including those working with trauma. It also provides valuable
insights for modalities practising from a psycho-spiritual perspective, including
Jungian and transpersonal psychotherapists.
Michael Wilson is a psychotherapist (UKCP reg.) in private practice in
Edinburgh and Berwick-upon-Tweed, UK. He is the co-author of Creative
Ethical Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy (2012, Sage).
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Resource Focused Counselling
and Psychotherapy
An Introduction
Michael Wilson
Firstpublished2017
byRoutledge
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©2017MichaelWilson
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ISBN:978-1-138-91579-4(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-138-91581-7(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-68384-3(ebk)
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For my mother Johanna Kraus Wilson
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Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Permissions ix
Introduction 1
1 Overviewof resource focused therapy 8
2 The origins of resourcing 27
3 Resourcing of emotional systems 44
4 Dimensions of experiencing 61
5 Integrative resource focus in therapy 91
6 Therapy as education 106
7 Therapeutic relationship as resourcing experience 116
8 Resourcing for trauma 136
9 The resource focused therapist 153
Appendix 171
Index 175
Acknowledgements
Theresourcesavailable tomeduringthewriting ofthisprojectwerenumerous,
and often deeply validating when they came in the form of dreams.
Particular thanks go to Lyn Phillips for his enduring commitment at every
stage of this book. My thanks, too, go to Bridget Grant for offering valuable
feedback on the later stages of this project as a whole, and to Jenny Pearson
for thoughts on Chapter 9. Appreciation also goes to Jorge N. Ferrer and
Michael Washburn for their reflections on my representation of some of their
ideas atearlierwriting stages.Within theparticipatorynatureofrealitywhere
time present contains something of time past, and anticipates time future, I
thank my Jungian analyst Bani Shorter (1923–2010).
One of the deepest resourcing experiences is the Northumberland country-
side, in particular the River Tweed, College Valley, Holy Island, the coastal
pathways andwooded areas, and the inhabitants of these places. Thank you.
Permissions
Washburn, M. (1999) ‘Embodied Spirituality in a Sacred World’, The
Humanistic Psychologist, 27(2): 133–172. Extracts reprinted by permission of
Division 32, Society for Humanistic Psychology (http://www.apadivisions.org/
division-32).
McGilchrist, I. (2009) The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain
andtheMakingoftheWesternWorld,NewHavenandLondon:YaleUniversity
Press.PermissiongrantedbyDavidHighamAssociates.
Schore, A. N. (2014) ‘The Right Brain is Dominant in Psychotherapy’,
Psychotherapy,51(3): 388–397.Extracts reprintedwith permission from APA.