Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Practitioner's Guide

If you have ever wondered how it is to be a psychotherapist, then you should read this book. It covers the anecdotal issues such as getting payed, but more importantly it goes deep into the process of what is trying to be achieved with the patient. And it does this in a very personal manner: it the author's point of view, not some general recommendations. Yet is also tries to explain and argue why or who else believes the same. Still, it is this very personal voice that makes this book work: here is someone who knows her "business" and wants to share her understanding with you. The book has a lot of content. Some may feel there is too much, while others not enough. The trickiness is its goal to provide important lifelong learning from multiple perspectives in a single book. I will not say that it was an easy read. In fact, I put the book aside many times, and all in all it took me a year to finish it. Yet I am still giving it five starts. It is true that the book is sometimes hard to read. First because if you are not a professional in psychology, some of these details are not very interesting. Secondly because the writing is often very heavy, with long phrases and overly burdening adjectives. Yet, in the end, by including both the mundane and exciting aspects of the job, the whole description rings more true. And also, in the end, even the heavy writing became a thrill as I found myself "cheering" the author for having yet again achieved a paragraph long construction of intellectual writing. To summarize: a valuable and interesting book of what psychotherapists do, a very "likeable" author who's writing is a bit heavy but still readable.

I was raised (psychologically speaking, not developmentally speaking) by scientists, and the fact that I was even interested in reading about Psychoanalytic theory was something I kept hidden from my advisors. Now I walk around with this book on display and people ask all sorts of questions, and I tell them while it's not my first line of attack with my clients, it is exceedingly useful to have another set of tools to use when trying to help. This is an EXCELLENT book for ANY first-time therapist, no matter who they were raised by and what wave of therapy they subscribe to. I would happily recommend this book to any new clinical student, and to any clinical​ students, who like myself, were sworn into the cult of CBT very early on. I have very much enjoyed McWilliams' writing and I found she was clear and behavioral in her advice, not vague like a lot of other books about how to conduct therapy can be.

This book is ideal for clinicians who may have an interest in psychodynamic therapy, but did not cover the topic extensively in their training programs. McWilliams writes in a clear, engaging way, using many case examples and treating in depth the tenets of psychoanalysis that undergraduate and even graduate students are often exposed to only in the form of reductive cliches. How, exactly, does one make the unconscious conscious, or analyze the transference? McWilliams makes a strong case for psychotherapy as an art rather than a science, and her book demystifies the psychoanalytic perspective without trying to reduce away the fundamental mystery of the talking cure. She approaches the topic with "curiosity and awe", two precepts she believes are central to the therapeutic process. McWilliams also includes helpful chapters on managing difficult clinical situations and self-care for therapists. Reading this book feels less like slogging through a textbook and more like chatting with a particularly knowledgeable supervisor.

Incredible book

Everyone should read this book! Nancy is such an approachable writer and gives you the gift of learning about psychotherapy in an easy to absorb way.

Highly recommended book aside from the price

As a student of counseling techniques, the perspective on psychoanalytic practice from non-analytic authors has been absolutely dreadful. Textbooks on psychotherapy seem to agree that psychoanalytic therapy is only making someone lie on a sofa and then not talking to them, while pocketing fees -- but the reality is that psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a rich and diverse body of practices with literally thousands of published scientific studies to back up the interventions and case formulations. McWilliams is at the forefront of the integrative psychoanalytic profession, bridging various schools of psychodynamic and psychoanalytic research and practice, and she writes beautifully. I highly and heartily recommend this text to any student of psychotherapy or any scholar wishing to understand what analysts actually do in the minute to minute, day to day, year to year activity of the profession.

Needed for classes, what else can I say

I found this book extremely informative. It was easy to read and give a lot of references. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.

This book by Ms McWilliams opens you to the various dimensions of psychotherapeutic practice, both for beginners as well as for experienced professionals. I loved the chapter where she emphasises the significance of applying this work with love and care for the distressed individual. I have felt personally reinforced reading this and have experienced the impact of my application with love and caring for the pateient.