Healing through Relating

A Skill-building Book for Therapists

Overview

Healing through Relating will help you develop the specific skills you need to be an effective therapist. You can practice the exercises with a partner or with audio recordings, just like learning a language. And videos will show you how. Each of the forty-two skill-building exercises teaches a specific technique so you can successfully address typical impasses in therapy. Where you got stuck in the past, you’ll be able to move forward in the future.

Reviews for Healing through Relating

“Master therapist and award-winning author Jon Frederickson provides therapists with a clear, accessible, and highly effective path to clinical skill development. Along with over forty skill- building exercises, the book contains advice for cultivating motivation to practice, transtheoretical principles for effective therapy, and other guidance that will be helpful for trainees. This book is a special opportunity to learn from a master teacher!”
—Tony Rousmaniere, PsyD, Executive Director, Sentio Counseling Center, President-Elect, Division 39 of the American Psychological Association, and coauthor of the Essentials of Deliberate Practice series

“Frederickson provides skill-building exercises, instruction in how to conduct them, and video and audio resources. But as important is his conceptual framework that includes six categories of skills necessary for effective working alliances. By addressing skill categories that others have not covered in their DP books, manuals, or platforms, Frederickson makes a unique contribution to the training literature.”
—Rodney Goodyear, PhD, Program Coordinator, Masters of Counseling and Psychotherapy, University of Redlands, and Emeritus Professor of Counseling Psychology, University of Southern California

“If you learn to play an instrument very well, your ‘technique’ can become a prison. But if you step outside the technique and into the unfolding musical conversation of therapy—as Jon Frederickson shows us—a deeper relationship awaits.”
—Daryl Chow, PhD, blogger at Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development and author of The First Kiss: Undoing the Intake Model and Igniting the First Sessions in Psychotherapy

“Frederickson is a master at transforming core therapeutic principles into clear exercises that help therapists develop a broad repertoire of advanced skills. These skills will help therapists of any orientation flexibly match interventions to patients’ specific needs in the moment, leading to improved outcomes.”
—Peter Lilliengren, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden

“All my students are recognizing just how important—in fact, crucial—skill-building exercises are. Even though they were anxious about them or a little resistant early on, they are a game changer in seeing therapists’ skills develop.”
—Angela Cooper, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie Medical School

“I use Jon’s skill-building exercises with undergraduate counseling students and graduate students in clinical psychology. The opportunity to learn and practice these skills is consistently ranked as one of the most effective aspects of my courses and supervision. More advanced psychotherapy supervisees have reported that the skill-building practice improved their clinical effectiveness and led to personal and professional growth.”
—Deborah L. Pollack, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Utica University, and Clinical Assistant Professor, SUNY Upstate Medical University

“The skill-building exercises accelerated the learning and implementation of an evidence-based practice, improving outcomes with clients, and developing clinicians became appropriately con- fident about their skills. Having an opportunity to build the capacity to intervene in sessions by practicing these skills outside of the therapy session prepares clinicians to respond effectively in session.”
—Asta Lynch, LCSW, Outpatient Services Bureau Director, Arlington County Community Services Board, Department of Human Services

“The stimulating real-life exercises, accompanied by crystal-clear explanations, helped me integrate important principles of clinical theory and technique at a deep level. They helped my ‘attachment-muscle memory’ set in so my brain could forget about shoulds and should-nots. I became freer to listen and discover the true art of psychotherapy, see the potential in my patients, and most importantly help them see and feel it. I highly recommend this book.”
—Yair Braun, PhD, Center for the Treatment of Eating Disorders, Rambam Medical Center, Israel

“What has had the most impact on me as a CBT therapist is the ability to assess and regulate anxiety. Second is the ability to get a clear focus faster and avoid getting caught in rumination and vague, externalizing conversations. Third, I learned to ask for patients’ reactions to me and how they perceive me. It feels great to be able to help patients—I can feel their relief.”
—Mattias Boije, Social Worker and Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, Outpatient Psychiatry, Höglandssjukhuset Eksjö, Sweden

“This book is a phenomenal contribution to the field. This is an approach to training that I encour- age all new therapists to consider, as well as anyone like me with gaps in our development. The exercises are incredibly valuable to deepen skills or to course-correct.”
—Lisa Barker, Clinical Counselor, Vancouver, BC

“As a trainee, I found it difficult to establish the therapeutic task and instead was often caught up in the client’s diversifying. Jon’s skill-building exercises helped me establish the therapeutic task early on while co-creating a therapeutic alliance.”
—Richard Cox, Reg. MBACP, Psychodynamic Counselor and Psychotherapist, Buxton, UK

About the Author

Jon Frederickson, MSW, is a therapist in private practice in Washington, DC. He is cochair of the Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) Training Program at the Washington School of Psychiatry, where he has been on the faculty since 1988. He was previously chair of the Supervision Training and Advanced Psychotherapy Training Programs at the school as well as chair of the Faculty Clinical Council.

He is the chair of the ISTDP Core Training Program at the Norwegian ISTDP Society and on the faculty of the Laboratorium Psychoedukacji in Warsaw and the Italian Experiential Psychotherapy Association in Treviso. He is also the author of several books, including The Lies We Tell Ourselves: How to Face the Truth, Accept Yourself, and Create a Better Life; Co-Creating Change: Effective Dynamic Therapy Techniques; and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: Learning to Listen from Multiple Perspectives.

Jon gives clinical presentations ranging from half-day events to three-day sessions on many topics. He also runs training groups in the United States, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Poland, and Italy. Each group meets four times a year for three years. Jon and his teachers offer intensive skill-based training for therapists.