1st Edition

Who Is Sylvia? and Other Stories Case Studies in Psychotherapy

    First published in 2002, in this innovative book two leading practitioners tell the stories of the people they have met as clients and how they, as therapists, tried to help them. Through compelling case studies, Peven and Shulman invite the reader into their thoughts and feelings about their clients, their processes and treatment techniques, and their subsequent successes and failures. The authors describe a cognitive, constructivist, interpersonal, dynamic approach based primarily on the principles of Alfred Adler's Individual Psychology. The case studies represent several different DSM-IV diagnostic categories, and the authors offer their own theoretical perspectives and treatment methods for each category. With compassion, insight, and skill, the authors take complicated material and present it in a clearly written and easy to understand fashion.

    Introduction
    1. Psychodynamic Theory
    2. Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
    3. The Metamorphosis
    4. Who Is Sylvia?
    5. A Letter to Daddy
    6. "Are you lookin' At Me?"
    7. The Replacement
    8. Icarus
    9. To the Manner Born
    10. Guilty Pleasures
    11. Epilogue
    Index

    Biography

    Dorothy E. Peven, M.S.W. is a licensed clinical social worker in private practice in the Chicago area. She has served as Vice President of the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology and has consulted and lectured for the Alfred Adler Institutes in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Japan.

    Bernard H. Shulman, M.D., is a former professor of psychiatry at Northwestern and Loyola Universities. He is the past president of the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology and of the International Association of Individual Psychology.

    "These marvelous and gripping case stories touch your mind and heart. Clinicians and students as well as current and prospective clients are treated to a panoramic of what truly compassionate and effective psychotherapy, practiced by masterful therapists, is all about. This is the best book of its kind to come along in years." -- Len Sperry, M.D., Ph.D, author of Handbook of Diagnosis and Treatment of the DSM-IV Personality Disorders
    "An insightful illustration of the therapeutic relationship and skills. Both students of psychotherapy and practitioners will find Who is Sylvia? a valuable resource." -- Gary D. McKay, author of How You Feel is Up to You; The STEP Programs; Raising Respectful Kids in a Rude World
    "Basic to understanding others, and treating them, is to know your theory and yourself, to know how you know yourself and others. Peven and Shulman use Adler's theory for that purpose and to understand each client's personal theory, their individual, unique lifestyle, the guide to how that person lives. Peven and Shulman treat whole people living whole lives and tell us, in this book, peoples' life stories, the stories of their therapy and the story of the interaction of lives between therapist and patient. These stories of difficult and complex patients and therapies are informative, useful, warm, humane and fulfilling." -- Guy J. Manaster, Ph.D., Professor, Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin
    "A wonderful book...It is perhaps the best simplification of Adlerian ideas that I have ever read...a "must read" for anyone who identifies themselves as an Adlerian." -- Journal of Individual Psychology