Succeeding with Difficult Clients

Richard Wessler is in private practice at Cognitive Therapy Services in New York City, and emeritus professor of psychology and former chair of the department at Pace University in Westchester, New York.He has written extensively on Cognitive Appraisal Therapy, the approach he originated with Sheenah Hankin. They collaborate on personality profiles of celebrities, such as the one of Howard Stern that appears in his best selling book, Private Parts. He appears on radio and television, including CNN and the Fox News Channel, discussing relationships, parenting and popular culture. He is regularly quoted in newspapers, including The New York Times and San Francisco Examiner, and magazines, including Seventeen and Entrepreneur, on topics ranging from flirting to employee relationships.In addition, he has authored numerous articles and books on psychological therapy and counseling. He is an editorial board member of Psychotherapy (the official journal of Division 29 of the American Psychological Assocation) and Psicologia Conductual (published in Spain). Sheenah Hankin received her graduate degree in counseling from Aston University and her Ph.D. from International University. She practiced in Dublin, Ireland until 1981, when she moved to New York City. Together with her husband, Dr. Richard Wessler, she developed an approach for the treatment of personality disorders called Cognitive Appraisal Therapy.Sheenah practices on New York's Upper East Side and as reported in the New York Times Magazine, she is so much in demand that new clients must wait a year for an appointment. She is listed in Who's Who in America and most recently she authored the final chapter in Howard Stern's best-selling book, Private Parts.Sheenah is regularly quoted in magazines, especially Allure, Elle, Mademoiselle, Redbook and Newsweek. She has been a regular panelist on "Geraldo." Sheenah has been featured on "Good Morning America," "Leeza," "Sally Jesse Raphael," "Maury," "Animal Kingdom," MSNBC, and "Court TV." Sheenah also has a live weekly show on the Internet, On the Couch with Sheenah at www.onlineTV.com. Jonathon Stern, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice with Cognitive Psychotherapy Services in Manhattan. In addition to working with adults, he specializes in psychotherapy with teenagers, children and their parents. He received his undergraduate degree in Psychology and Spanish from Haverford College, his doctorate in clinical psychology from The University of Connecticut, and completed an internship and an advanced internship in child forensic psychology at Children's Hospital in Boston.Dr. Stern previously was a Supervising Psychologist at New York's Beth Israel Medical Center Child Psychiatry Outpatient Department, where he also was Director of the Clinical Externship Program and a participating therapist in the Brief Psychotherapy Research Project. He has published articles and chapters on doing psychotherapy with difficult parents, has given numerous training workshops to professionals, most notably at The Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration, and has taught at Pace University, Marymount Manhattan College and The University of Connecticut.

• Part I: Cognitive Appraisal TheoryWhat Makes Difficult Clients Difficult.Motivation and Attachment.Basic CAT Concepts: Persontypic Affect, Justifying Cognitions, and Security-seeking Behaviors.Patterns of Personality.The Difficult Client Revisited.Part II: Cognitive Appraisal TherapyThe CAT Assessment.Interventions Based on the CAT Model.Affect-based Interventions.Additional Interventions Involving Cognition, Behavior, Adjunctive Medication, and Therapeutic Impasses.The Process of CAT (Case Studies).Part III: Applications of CATCAT with Personality-disordered Clients.Working with Borderline Personality-disordered Clients.Couple Therapy.CAT Group Therapy.Working with "Difficult" Parents.References.Author Index.Subject Index.

"Wessler, Hankin, and Stern are to be commended for their efforts in addressing the difficult topic of working with difficult clients... In sum, Succeeding with Difficult Clients provides a clear overview of the cognitive, affective, and interpersonal components of CAT designed as a guideline for treatment of personality-disoriented adults." --CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY"The book is easy to read, comprehensible, and very useful in application... This book was very helpful in working with some of my own difficult clients who I found struck in their process of change and a few tips from the book allowed me to adjust my exploration questions, helping to lower resistance and causing the change." --DOODY PUBLICATIONS