Succeeding with Difficult Clients: Applications of Cognitive Appraisal Therapy

351 Pages·2001·1.11 MB·English

by  Richard L. Wessler

Succeeding with
Difficult Clients
Applications of Cognitive
Appraisal Therapy
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Succeeding with
Difficult Clients
Applications of Cognitive
Appraisal Therapy
Richard Wessler
Sheenah Hankin
Jonathan Stern
Academic Press
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Copyright ©2001 by Academic Press
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To our children, our students, and all of our clients.
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CONTENTS
I
PART
Cognitive Appraisal Theory
1 What Makes Difficult Clients Difficult 3
2 Motivation and Attachment 21
3 Basic CAT Concepts: Personotypic Affect, Justifying
Cognitions, and Security-seeking Behaviors 33
4 Patterns of Personality 63
5 The Difficult Client Revisited 77
II
PART
Cognitive Appraisal Therapy
6 The CAT Assessment 93
7 Interventions Based on the CAT Model 127
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viii Contents
8 Affect-based Interventions 163
9 Additional Interventions Involving Cognition,
Behavior, Adjunctive Medication, and
Therapeutic Impasses 183
10 The Process of CAT (Case Studies) 199
III
PART
Applications of CAT
11 CAT with Personality-disordered Clients 227
12 Working with Borderline Personality-disordered Clients 257
13 Couples Therapy 279
14 CAT Group Therapy 293
15 Working with “Difficult” Parents 305
References 323
Author Index 335
Subject Index 339
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, we would like to acknowledge the presence in our professional and
personal lives of some wonderful colleagues and collaborators: Jesse Rosenthal,
Mildred Borrás, Vincent Minetti, and Windy Dryden. We would like to thank
our editor, George Zimmar, for his good natured intelligence and encourage-
ment in helping to bring this book to fruition and our spirited secretary, Mau-
reen Coveney, for putting up with us during the writing of this book.
We also would like to tip our hats to colleagues whose theoretical and clin-
ical writings have been invaluable influences on our therapy and catalysts to
our thinking: Theodore Millon, John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, Mary Main and
her colleagues, Robert Plutchik, Jeremy Safran, Drew Westen, Donald
Nathanson, and Stanley Greenspan.
Finally, Jonathan would like to thank his wife, Sandra Waugh, for tirelessly
transcribing tape recordings of our peer supervision sessions and for sweeping
the kids away to give him time to write.
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