Sexual Attraction in Therapy: Clinical Perspectives on Moving Beyond the Taboo – A Guide for Training and Practice

Sexual Attraction in Therapy presents new and original theoretical and clinical insights from multiple perspectives into working with the complex phenomenon of sexual attraction in therapy. Challenging practitioners to think about sexual attraction as a normal dynamic developing through the unique intimacy of the therapy encounter, it encourages readers to treat sexual attraction as an opportunity for deeper work, rather than as a dread. This text fills an important gap in the market by moving beyond psychoanalytic theories of transference and countertransference, and discussing views on theory, training, practice and research from relational/integrative, cognitive behavioural, acceptance and commitment, existential, phenomenological, psychoanalytic and systemic approaches.   The contributors to the text – including Doris MIlwain, Michael Worrell, John Sommers–Flanagan and Martin Milton – are highly experienced psychologists and psychotherapists with international reputations as theorists on the erotic in clinical practice. Illustrated with detailed case material and strategies for managing sexual attraction, this book  aims to stimulate understanding and dialogue by bringing theory and practice from a variety of perspectives together in one comprehensive volume.

Maria Luca is a Reader in Psychotherapy and Counselling Psychology, Senior Research Fellow, and Head of the Reflections Research Centre in the School of Psychotherapy and Counselling Psychology, Regent’s University London, UK. She has extensive clinical experience as a psychotherapist in the NHS and runs a private practice in London. She is a UKCP accredited psychotherapist, a BACP senior accredited counselling supervisor, and editor of The Therapeutic Frame in the Clinical Context: Integrative Perspectives (2004).

B = Standard Review List US 1. American Journal of Psychiatry 2. American Psychologist 3. North American Journal of Psychology. 4. J. Amer. Psychoana. Assn. 5. Contemporary Psychoanalysis. 6. Journal of Anal. Psychol. 7. Journal of Clinical Psychoanalysis. (USA). [author has been published in this journal] 8. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) and (APA) 9. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology (Brill) 10. Journal of Mental Health Counseling Also: PsyCritiques (3 copies) UK/ROW I published two research articles in the Counselling & Psychotherapy Research Journal (BACP). The Journal of The Society for Existential Analysis is sponsored by Regent’s University and read by many of our students/trainees. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice by the British Psychological Society is recommended to all our students and is widely read. The other journals cover a range of training institutions and modalities, which captures the essence of the book. 1. Annual Review of Psychology. 2. British Journal of Psychiatry. 3. Journal of Counselling Psychology (APA). 4. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice (BPS). 5. Counselling & Psychotherapy Research (The BACP research journal published by Taylor & Francis). 6. Journal of The Society for Existential Analysis 7. The Psychotherapist. UKCP. 8. International Journal of Psychotherapy, European Association of Psychotherapy: EAP. 9. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy. (BABCP) Cambridge. 10. Psychotherapy Research. Society for Psychotherapy Research (pub. Taylor & Francis). 11. British Journal of Psychotherapy. British Association of Psychotherapists: www.bap–psychotherapy.org 12. Contemporary Psychotherapy. Minster Centre, London, UK (e–journal) 13. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. British Psychological Society. 14. The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist (BABCP). 15. Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane. (independent journal)