This book analyses the debates around the related concepts of barriers, defences and resistance across different forms of psychotherapy. Rather than presenting a single model, different understandings and usages of these terms are compared and contrasted using biopsychosocial, developmental and contextual perspectives. The book suggests how divergent theoretical positions might usefully be connected, but also highlights the pitfalls of poaching ideas and metaphors from other approaches with different epistemological or ethical foundations. Readers are invited to reflect on their own habitual and preferred standpoints in therapy, supervision and training, to help enhance the use of self in therapeutic relationships.

Like other books in the series, the main focus of this book is on theoretical integration and interplay rather than practice, but clinical implications are also discussed throughout. Barriers, Defences and Resistance succeeds in discussing these concepts not simply in relation to therapy itself, but in relation to the broader field of professional psychotherapy such as supervision and training. It is essential reading for counsellors, counselling and clinical psychologists, psychotherapists and health professionals with an interest in therapeutic relationships.