Psychodynamic Social Work

A comprehensive guide to psychodynamic clinical practice within a contemporary social work treatment context, this book incorporates a number of different theoretical models in tandem with more than thirty-five diverse case illustrations. Case studies are derived from an assortment of venues, including inpatient and outpatient mental health, family service, residential treatment, corrections, and private practice.

Using traditional psychoanalytic theory as a point of departure, "Psychodynamic Social Work" reflects the richness of current thinking in psychoanalysis and dynamic psychotherapy and addresses such important topics as

o the unique relationship between social work and psychoanalysis;

o psychosocial development and dysfunction;

o strategies for beginning therapy and establishing a relationship between therapist and client;

o understanding and using the client's transference and the therapist's countertransference to clinical advantage;

o the clinical process from dynamic assessment through termination, including client resistance to treatment as a central challenge;

o methods for treating children and adolescents;

o brief and time-limited therapy and dynamically oriented case management;

o the "focal conflict model," an instrument for analyzing a client's based on changes in speech that is used for clinical instruction as well as in single-case research and clinical supervision.

Jerrold R. Brandell is professor and chairperson of the graduate concentration in interpersonal practice at Wayne State University School of Social Work, where he was recently named Distinguished Faculty Fellow.