The Human Elements of Psychotherapy ─ A Nonmedical Model of Emotional Healing

While the medical model (diagnosis + prescriptive treatment = cure or symptom amelioration) remains the dominant paradigm in psychotherapy, Elkins presents his unique relational model that “eviscerates the medical model using cogent scholarly, empirical, and logical arguments.” Describing psychotherapy as wholly dependent upon the participants and the quality of their interpersonal connection, he argues that we are evolutionarily hard-wired to heal and be healed by human connection and social interaction, and cites human elements as the power center for emotional healing in psychotherapy. He provides an evidence-based theoretical structure of how emotional healing occurs and how psychotherapy really works. Five chapters are: clinical psychology: clinical evidence for a nonmedical model; attachment theory and social relationships research: the power of human connection and social interaction; neuroscience and evolutionary theory: how our brains are evolved to heal through social means; moral treatment: a historical example of healing through social means; summary of the model and implications for clinical research, training, and practice; afterword. Annotation c2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)