Working with Autobiographical Memories in Therapy

Download or read book Working with Autobiographical Memories in Therapy written by Arnold Bruhn and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-21 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aggregating 46 years of research, this book proposes a fresh approach on how to conduct assessment and therapy using autobiographical memories. It offers a system to identify and deconstruct major lifetime memories and shows how clinicians can work with the content of these memories to help clients better understand past events as present events are filtered through them. Dr. Bruhn’s first book on this subject, Earliest Childhood Memories: Theory and Application to Clinical Practice (1990), illustrated what could be learned about clients’ present situation from the Early Memories Procedure (EMP), which is designed to identify and explore autobiographical memories of problematic experiences in therapy. The present book, which builds upon Dr. Bruhn’s work with incarcerated women and male parolees, shows what can be done with these key memories by working directly on them in therapy. Dr. Bruhn showcases a new insight-oriented treatment paradigm, "memories work," to help resolve the issues identified in EMP responses. Chapters offer an alternative view of processing trauma and explore each facet of using memories work to design mental health interventions with clients. Included throughout are detailed case studies and techniques to re-engineer dysfunctional perceptions. Clinicians and therapists will come away with the tools necessary to use memories work successfully with clients.