Soul Searching: Why Psychotherapy Must Promote Moral Responsibility / Edition 1

by William J. Doherty

Overview

Paul, a divorced father, wants to back out of his child care arrangement and spend less time with his children. Nathan has been lying to his wife about a serious medical condition. Marsha, recently separated from her husband, cannot resist telling her children negative things about their father. What is the role of therapy in these situations? Trained to strive for neutrality and to focus strictly on the clients' needs, most therapists generally consider moral issues such as fairness, truthfulness, and obligation beyond their domain. Now, an award-winning psychologist and family therapist criticizes psychotherapy's overemphasis on individual self-interest and calls for a sense of moral responsibility in therapy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465009459
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	03/22/1996
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.62(d)
Lexile:	1380L (what's this?)

About the Author

William J. Doherty, Ph.D., is professor of Family Social Science and director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at the University of Minnesota. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Editorial Reviews

Psychotherapists since Freud, in Doherty's biting assessment, have overemphasized individual self-fulfillment while paying insufficient attention to the patient's moral values, accountability and family and community responsibilities. The psychologist-director of the University of Minnesota's marriage and family therapy program, Doherty draws on his own clinical practice in this important critique. Going against the prevailing wisdom, he proposes that therapists should consciously influence clients to change their behavior in light of the moral issues involved. Among the illustrative case histories are a recently divorced father who is considering abandoning his children; a depressed, anorexic, suicidal young man who needs emotional distance from his controlling, intrusive mother; and a couple coping with the strain of caring for their developmentally delayed, four-year-old daughter. Included are guidelines for those seeking a morally sensitive therapist. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Doherty (Medical Family Therapy, BasicBks., 1992) raises concerns about our therapeutic culture's promotion of individual self-interest over interpersonal responsibility. Therapists of the past, presupposing that their clients had a sense of moral responsibility, set about to liberate their patrons from morally rigid upbringings. Yet, through changing times, psychotherapists have continued to emphasize self-fulfillment over social responsibility while at the same time claiming to be value-free. Doherty advocates that psychotherapists recognize the claims of the larger society on them; therapists, he says, have an obligation to serve as moral consultants to their clients, raising questions about the effects of clients' behavior on others. On a practical level, Doherty explains how therapists can introduce moral considerations to their clients and discusses the virtues he believes therapists should affirm after abandoning a morality-free approach. While the argument is well presented, the specter of mental health practitioners as "ethicists" is sure to raise hackles among therapists and their critics alike. A controversial book recommended for large psychology collections.-Bonnie Hoffman, Stony Brook, N.Y.

Library Journal

Doherty (director, Marriage and Family Therapy Program, U. of Minnesota) shows hows therapy can be a powerful healing force when clients face moral dilemmas around issue such as divorce, commitment to children, and honesty. He describes a movement of practitioner therapy forums to pursue the re-moralization of psychotherapy, calling for therapists to recognize their moral responsibilities to each other and communities, and tells consumers what to look for in a morally sensitive therapist. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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