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    Who Am I? Exploring Identity through Sexuality, Politics and Art £21.59 – £31.99
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    Organisational and Social Dynamics: Volume 24 Number 1 £6.99 – £30.00

    Reflecting on Therapy

    Author: Michael Jacobs

    £12.59 – £18.99

    Thinking back on over fifty years’ experience as a therapist and supervisor, Michael Jacobs invites you to pause and reflect with him on some of the fascinating and crucial aspects of the therapeutic relationship. A book to be savoured like a fine wine, full of wisdom from a life in the field, offering space for thought in today’s frenetic world.

    Read Michael Jacobs’ ‘What I’ve Learned’ featured in the September 2024 issue of Therapy Today © the journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).

    Look inside!

    Author

    Michael Jacobs

    ISBN

    9781800132719

    Format

    Paperback, e-Book, Print & e-Book

    Page Extent

    206

    Publication Date

    May 2024

    Subject Areas

    Psychotherapy

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    • Description
    • Contents
    • About the author
    Description

    Michael Jacobs is the author of key texts, such as Psychodynamic Counselling in Action and The Presenting Past. Looking back over fifty years’ experience as a therapist and reflecting on some forty years as a supervisor and teacher, he invites you to join him and reflect upon issues uncovered in the therapy room.

    Therapists are encouraged to engage in reflective practice, thinking through what they are saying and doing, together with presenting their work in supervision in order to engage in fine-tuning their insight and skills. However, it is hard to find the time with so many demands pressing in. Michael presents various situations, phrases and practices which may evade reflection since they are so common in the consulting room, or which may challenge assumptions that easily become habitual in a therapist’s practice. He unpacks apparent conventional phrases, such as ‘How are you?’, ‘Did you see …?’, ‘And …’. He says the unsayable, looks at the place of CPD, questions ‘expertise’, the impact of failure, Freud’s cigars, expectations on the therapist, being a therapist, the value of apologies, letting be, niggles, the vicissitudes of memory, the pointlessness of questions, what therapists miss, hopes, goals, taboos, finishing therapy, money, notes … and many, many more significant possibilities that arise in the course of a week’s regular sessions.

    This beautiful little book contains space within for your own notes, thoughts, and reflections after each reflection from Michael. This gives you the opportunity to ponder, to savour, to develop or disagree on the ideas you encounter. Take your time, slow down, and allow your thoughts to grow.

    Contents

    Contents

    1. There’s no hurry—how you might use these reflections
    2. ‘How are you?’
    3. Being outrageous
    4. Saying ‘No’
    5. Developing practice
    6. Emptying and opening
    7. What is expertise?
    8. Balancing the ship
    9. And…?
    10. More than a parrot
    11. Quick to judge
    12. A flexible core
    13. My friend failure
    14. Outbursts and inbursts
    15. Did you see…?
    16. As if…
    17. Taking the flak
    18. A sprinkling of CPD
    19. The way
    20. A cigar is a cigar is a cigar
    21. Great expectations
    22. What do you do?
    23. Fears and wishes
    24. Apologies
    25. The ambivalence of the therapist
    26. The ambivalence of the therapist—further thoughts
    27. Let be
    28. Silence
    29. Outcomes and goals
    30. The response
    31. Niggles
    32. There’s always a flip side
    33. Enriching practice
    34. I don’t like…
    35. Pressure
    36. Questions
    37. Difference
    38. Remembering
    39. What did you miss out?
    40. His (or her or their) therapist’s voice
    41. Hope
    42. Gifts
    43. Leaving therapy
    44. Alone or lonely?
    45. Taboo
    46. Money
    47. Does one size really fit all?
    48. Notes
    49. Co-creation
    50. The mysterium

    About the author

    About the author

    Michael Jacobs was born in 1941. He was educated at Dulwich College and Exeter College Oxford; and then attended Chichester Theological College before being ordained in 1965. Having served in a parish in Walthamstow, he was interdenominational chaplain at the University of Sussex from 1968–1972, during which time he started practising as a therapist with support from the Student Health Service, then headed by Anthony Ryle. In 1972 he was appointed psychotherapist and counsellor at the University of Leicester Student Health Service, and trained on the clinical psychology psychotherapy course at the Tavistock Clinic in London. After twelve years in the Student Health Service, he moved to the Department of Adult Education, where he was developing a counselling training, which went on to include a psychotherapy training. Alongside this he played a significant role in the development of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and the Universities Psychotherapy and Counselling Association. He is a fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, a Fellow of the National Society for Counselling and Psychotherapy and an honorary fellow of the Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling. He had his first book published in 1982 and has since written or edited over sixty books for a number of publishers. Following a stroke in 1999 he retired from the University of Leicester, and moved to Swanage where for a number of years he was Visiting Professor at Bournemouth University. Apart from his writing and teaching he conducted a small practice of therapy and supervision. He continued also to lead workshops largely devoted to his interest in the development of thinking and belief, and psychoanalysis and film. Studying for another degree he was awarded first class honours by the Open University, and went on to complete a PhD comparing psychoanalytic and literary criticism of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

    Michael has been married three times, separating from his first wife Valerie in 1989, and marrying Moira Walker. They worked together on various series and teaching at Leicester and Bournemouth Universities. Following her early death in 2013, Michael married Pamela Howdle-Smith, with whom he now enjoys a more complete retirement, in which they appreciate music, literature, fine food, and reflecting on their earlier busy lives in teaching and therapy. He has two daughters by his first marriage, two grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

    1 review for Reflecting on Therapy

    1. Rachael Sharrad MBACP, child and adolescent psychotherapist, ‘Therapy Today’, Feb 2025, Vol.36:1 – 19/02/2025

      ‘Jacobs incorporates theory to lend weight to his reflections, demonstrating various therapeutic perspectives and enabling him to ask the question, “Does one size fit all?” This book would be of value to trainee and newly qualified therapists but also to established practitioners, encouraging them to take time for reflection.’

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