Succeeding with Difficult Clients: Applications of Cognitive Appraisal Therapy » (1st Edition)

Richard Wessler is in private practice at Cognitive Therapy Services in New York City, and emeritus professor of psychology and former chair of the department at Pace University in Westchester, New York.He has written extensively on Cognitive Appraisal Therapy, the approach he originated with Sheenah Hankin. They collaborate on personality profiles of celebrities, such as the one of Howard Stern that appears in his best selling book, Private Parts. He appears on radio and television, including CNN and the Fox News Channel, discussing relationships, parenting and popular culture. He is regularly quoted in newspapers, including The New York Times and San Francisco Examiner, and magazines, including Seventeen and Entrepreneur, on topics ranging from flirting to employee relationships.In addition, he has authored numerous articles and books on psychological therapy and counseling. He is an editorial board member of Psychotherapy (the official journal of Division 29 of the American Psychological Assocation) and Psicologia Conductual (published in Spain).

Sheenah Hankin received her graduate degree in counseling from Aston University and her Ph.D. from International University. She practiced in Dublin, Ireland until 1981, when she moved to New York City. Together with her husband, Dr. Richard Wessler, she developed an approach for the treatment of personality disorders called Cognitive Appraisal Therapy.Sheenah practices on New York's Upper East Side and as reported in the New York Times Magazine, she is so much in demand that new clients must wait a year for an appointment. She is listed in Who's Who in America and most recentlyshe authored the final chapter in Howard Stern's best-selling book, Private Parts.Sheenah is regularly quoted in magazines, especially Allure, Elle, Mademoiselle, Redbook and Newsweek. She has been a regular panelist on "Geraldo." Sheenah has been featured on "Good Morning America," "Leeza," "Sally Jesse Raphael," "Maury," "Animal Kingdom," MSNBC, and "Court TV." Sheenah also has a live weekly show on the Internet, On the Couch with Sheenah at www.onlineTV.com.

Jonathon Stern, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice with Cognitive Psychotherapy Services in Manhattan. In addition to working with adults, he specializes in psychotherapy with teenagers, children and their parents. He received his undergraduate degree in Psychology and Spanish from Haverford College, his doctorate in clinical psychology from The University of Connecticut, and completed an internship and an advanced internship in child forensic psychology at Children's Hospital in Boston.Dr. Stern previously was a Supervising Psychologist at New York's Beth Israel Medical Center Child Psychiatry Outpatient Department, where he also was Director of the Clinical Externship Program and a participating therapist in the Brief Psychotherapy Research Project. He has published articles and chapters on doing psychotherapy with difficult parents, has given numerous training workshops to professionals, most notably at The Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration, and has taught at Pace University, Marymount Manhattan College and The University of Connecticut.

"I know that I am doing therapy correctly and well, so why aren't some of my clients changing?" "Why do I feel anxious when I think about my next session with that difficult client?" When psychotherapy stalls, it's time to try new ideas.

Succeeding with Difficult Clients is intended to help psychotherapists and mental health professionals treat problem clients. Additionally, it explores the various forms that "difficult" can take, discussing the feelings and thoughts such clients evoke in the therapist and describing how therapists frequently manage and mismanage their feelings during therapy.

Cognitive Appraisal Therapy (CAT) is a departure from conventional cognitive therapies where client motivation is conceptualized in terms of affect and attachment rather than cognitive schemas. Through this dynamic approach, practitioners will be able to integrate CAT techniques into their treatment plans to help them work successfully and confidently with difficult clients as individuals, as couples and in groups. Throughout the book, applications of CAT are illustrated and examined.

Drawing from the authors' extensive experience, Succeeding with Difficult Clients is filled with case illustrations and therapeutic dialogs, presenting a powerful integrative approach to working with clients with personality disorders as well as methods for improving the therapist's understanding and managing of feelings that often impede effective therapy.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Satinder Brar, PsyD(Cermak Health Services)
Description:This book is written to help psychologists, counselors, and other mental health professionals to conceptualize and treat patients who are considered untreatable because of countertransference evoked in the treating professional. Cognitive appraisal therapy (CAT) shifts from traditional cognitive behavior therapy by bringing in dynamic, attachment, motivational, and interpersonal theories. This integration of the theories gives the practitioner freedom to develop a treatment plan that allows them to work with a difficult client without becoming restricted by single theoretical model. The authors give illustrations of cases and therapeutic dialogues demonstrating how they were able to conceptualize and help so-called difficult clients work through their resistances and allow the change to occur.
Purpose:The purpose is to help therapists figure out how they can make an adjustment in their paradigm when the therapeutic process stalls, without getting frustrated and blaming the clients. The book is easy to read, comprehensible, and very useful in application. The authors meet their objectives.
Audience:This book is written for all mental health professionals.
Features:The book covers the definition and explanation of what makes a difficult client or difficult therapist. It then gets into the model of cognitive appraisal theory provides an explanation of theories of motivation, attachment, and concepts such as affect, justification of different cognitions, safety seeking behaviors, and different personality patterns and styles. There is an explanation of CAT as an assessment and treatment model. The book presents step-by-step interventions and techniques using real cases and explains how this model can be used with certain personality disorders, couples/marital therapy and in group therapy.
Assessment:This book was very helpful in working with some of my own difficult clients who I found struck in their process of change and a few tips from the book allowed me to adjust my exploration questions, helping to lower resistance and causing the change.