Relational Integrative Psychotherapy

LINDA FINLAY is a relational-centred, existential Integrative Psychotherapist (UKCP registered) in private practice. She has published numerous books, including Phenomenology for Therapists: Researching the Lived World (Wiley, 2011), Relational-centred Research for Psychotherapists: Exploring Meanings and Experience (with Ken Evans, Wiley, 2009) and The Practice of Psychosocial Occupational Theory (3rd edition, 2004). A frequent speaker at conferences and institutions across the UK and abroad, Linda also currently teaches with the Open University.

Foreword by Ken Evans ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgements xiii

1 What is Relational Integrative Psychotherapy? 1

Part I Being and Doing Processes 13

2 Meeting and Contracting 15

3 Engaging the Therapeutic Process 30

4 Empathising and Attuning 46

5 Holding, Containing and Boundarying 59

6 Resourcing: Nurturing Skills and Mobilising Coping Strategies 76

7 Intuiting, Imagining and Interpreting 88

8 Challenging 104

9 Integrating 120

10 Ending 136

Part II Theory Applied to Practice 149

11 Cognitively Orientated Therapy 151

12 Existential Phenomenology: Theory and Therapy 167

13 Gestalt Theory and Therapy 183

14 Relational Psychoanalytic Theory in Practice 198

15 Systemic Theory and Therapy 212

16 Transactional Analysis 226

Postscript 241

References 243

Index 255