On Being a Therapist

For more than twenty-five years, On Being a Therapist has inspired generations of mental health professionals to explore the most private and sacred aspects of their work helping others. In this thoroughly revised and updated fourth edition, Jeffrey Kottler explores many of the challenges that therapists face in their practices today, including pressures from increased technology, economic realities, and advances in theory and technique. He also explores the stress factors that are brought on from managed care bureaucracy, conflicts at work, and clients' own anxiety and depression. This new edition puts the spotlight on the therapist's role and responsibility to promote issues of diversity, social justice, human rights, and systemic changes within the community and the world at large.

In their professional lives, therapists are frequently exposed to a vast range of human despair, conflict, and suffering that can take an emotional toll on their personal lives. Drawing on cast histories from Freud, Rogers, Perls, and extensive interviews with practitioners, Kottler provides a candid account of the profound ways in which therapists are influenced by their interactions with clients. Explains how practitioners can use their professional skills and insights gained from their clients' experiences to solve their own problems, realize positive change in themselves, and so become better therapists.

New from Master Therapist and Best-Selling Author Jeffrey Kottler

For more than twenty-five years, On Being a Therapist has inspired generations of mental health professionals to explore the most private and sacred aspects of their work helping others. In this thoroughly revised and updated fourth edition, Jeffrey Kottler explores many of the challenges that therapists face in their practices today, including pressures from increased technology, economic realities, and advances in theory and technique. He also explores the stress factors that are brought on from managed care bureaucracy, conflicts at work, and clients' own anxiety and depression. This new edition puts the spotlight on the therapist's role and responsibility to promote issues of diversity, social justice, human rights, and systemic changes within the community and the world at large.

Praise for the Previous Editions

"This is one of those rare and exciting books that reaches deep into the heart of a profession and discloses not only its day-to-day workings but also the very personal satisfaction, problems, doubts, and joys its practitioners experience."—Booklist

"Written in an engaging style and filled with examples from the writings of well-known therapists. It should be required reading for those considering entering the profession."—Choice

Booknews

Kottler's candid account of the profound ways in which therapists are influenced by their interactions with clients, originally published in 1986, has been revised and updated to add recent anecdotal and empirical research on the subject. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jeffrey A. Kottler is professor, Department of Counseling, California State University, Fullerton. He is the author or coauthor of more than eighty books, including the New York Times best seller The Last Victim, Divine Madness, Creative Breakthroughs in Therapy, and Changing People's Lives While Transforming Your Own. He is also head of the Madhav Ghimire Foundation, which provides scholarships for at-risk girls in Nepal.