Changing Character: Short-term Anxiety-regulating Psychotherapy For Restructuring Defenses, Affects, And Attachment

If you want to start to learn doing Leigh McCullough's Affect Phobia treatment, "Treating Affect Phobia. A Manual for Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy" (2003) is the book you need. "Changing Character" (1997) is an earlier version, but it is longer, and is thus a useful supplement on some theoretical and technical points. Throughout "Affect Phobia" its authors give references to passages in "Changing Character". By now there is a whole family of short-term dynamic therapies. Whether you choose e.g. ISTDP or STDP (McCullough's version) may be a question of taste and your personality (a point that McCullough discusses in "Changing Character"). Maybe you will have to be a little bit of a sensation-seeker to like to ISTDP? (I am not sure, but I have a hunch that it is so). I don't think that is a the case if you shall like to and be capable to do STDP.

Great book as an introduction to McCulloughs affect phobia modality. I already am familiar with some other STDP modalities (eg AEDP, ISTDP) so this made it easy to see where this modality is different and has let me integrate aspects of this work into my STDP work with clients where I find I get stuck. Gives me another tool in my toolbox!

Well written, concise albeit dense, book that focuses on attachment and defensive structures.

Very informative and well written. Mental health professionals who specialize in the treatment of anxiety, trauma and emotional regulation will find this book very helpful.

Excellent

A coworker recommended and I bought it great book I recommended for psychotherapists. Changing Characters is a real clinical book.

I teach and supervise graduate student trainees and interns in clinical/counseling psychology (MA and PsyD Level). All of my students have found that "Changing Character" has been very valuable and immediately useful to their work with clients. In this book, Valliant nicely integrates short-term psychodynamic treatment approaches with both object-relational and cognitive-behavioral research and theory. She also includes an easily understandable application of Sylvan Tomkins affect theory to this type work. Valliant offers practical examples of how to apply these concepts to real-life therapy situations. A must-have for all therapists at any level of experience who are interested in fine-tuning their technique to achieve better results for their clients who are in pain.

The book's in good shape, but the pages are a wonderful, uniform green (the privious owner was apparently very enthusiastic about his/her marker pen). Not sure I'd call that "some underlining"..!