Ordeal Therapy: Unusual Ways to Change Behavior

In this new book, noted therapist and therapy teacher Jay Haley explains how and why ordeals work in therapy and offers numerous case histories to illustrate how ordeals can help individuals, couples, and families solve a wide range of problems. Haley first provides an account of the theoretical basis of ordeal therapy, showing how it builds on the work of Milton H. Erickson. Explaining how ordeals can succeed in promoting chnge even in cases with long histories of therapeutic failure, he describes the use of different kinds of ordeals, outlines the stages of ordeal therapy, and details special techniques to use with different clients, The detailed and extensive case histories cover a wide variety of clients, problems, and therapeutic difficulties. Haley discusse stances to take with different types of clients, strategies to use when working with individuals alone or with several family members, pitfalls to guard against, uses of different kinds of ordeals, stages of ordeal therapy, and important considerations when giving directives involving odeals. He also gives advice on cases that present special therapeutic delemmas such as suicide threats, and provides new insights into the way individuals and families behave. Problems discussed include psychosomatic symptoms, uncontrollable and violent children, separation and divorce, anxiety, incontinence, sexual frustration, alcoholism, speech blocks, and depression. --- from book's dustjacket