The Talking Cure: The Science Behind Psychotherapy

by Susan C. Vaughan

Book Overview

Vaughan, Susan C., M.D. Many therapists and their patients find that the traditional talking therapy still offers the best hope for long-term relief from depression and other psychological ailments.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399142290
• ISBN13: 9780399142291
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 1.0" x 6.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Very helpful book for a layreader

I was very excited when I recently found this book. Having studied cognitive processes and most of the recent professional journal articles on memory recovery, I was very surprised that the author's theories - written in 1997 - are now being confirmed left and right! Better yet, she explains the concepts in simple ways that nearly anyone can understand. She's right; there is no Wizard of Oz hiding behind the curtain during therapy sessions. Clients need to be taught how their cognitive and memory processes work. Armed with that knowledge - as provided in Dr. Vaughan's book - those clients may experience the new, delicious, empowering sensation that they - not their therapists - are in control of their own minds and lives.

A refreshing review of why psychotherapy works

Susan Vaugh has written a wonderful overview of the inner workings of psychotherapy. Thanks to neural plasticity, psychotherapy can, and, if successful, does change neural pathways and brain structure. Support for this may be found in the way dreams change in the course of successful psychotherapy. During REM sleep, the reticular formation is activated and, as neurons from that area are fired, habitual story themes are creanked out that reflect a client's Core Conflict (Luborsky). As successful psychotherapy progresses, dreams change; i.e., the Core Conflict changes, which in turn indicates that the neurons fired from the reticular formation are being fired in a different way, with different pathways and patterns.

Concise book on the relationship of psychology and the brain

A clear and concise book - somewhere between self-help and true psychology and psychobiology - but presenting intriguing and convincing arguments concerning the relationship between psychotherapy and the brain. One of the best books as to how and why psychodynamic therapy works - despite attacks from different directions over the century. It is highly recommended for anyone in therapy or considering a course of treatment, especially those interested in reconciling the "talking cure" and some of the discoveries of the last 20 years about the brain.

Showed me what therapy was all about!

This book was recommended by my therapist who said it was the best book he had ever read on the subject of how psychotherapy works and what the process was like. I was delighted to find that it was easy to read in a short amount of time and yet that I learned alot. The stories of patients are enjoyable and done with flair and the explanations of the science are broken up into manageable chunks that are possible to understand even for someone like me who has only a college level neuroscience background. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about this type of therapy.

Mind Meets Brain! And Psychotherapy will never be the same!

This fascinating book explains how psychotherapy literally changes the way that the neurons in the brain are interconnected to change the way you look at relationships in a permanent way. Vaughan recognizes that her model is merely a framework for beginning to think about the brain effects of psychotherapy, but it is a novel and wonderful framework. Along the way she tells warm, witty and wonderful stories from her patients' psychotherapy sessions as well as her own. The best book I've ever read on the subject!