Restoration Therapy: Understanding and Guiding Healing in Marriage and Family Therapy

Hargrave (marriage and family therapy, Fuller Seminary) and Pfitzer (chief of psychiatry, Klinik St. Irmingard, Germany) introduce essentials of restoration therapy and explain how certain forces lead to destructive cycles in relationships, which perpetuate more dysfunction among family members. Both authors come from a background of contextual family therapists in the tradition of Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy. While they still incorporate ideas from that tradition, such as trustworthiness, justice, entitlement, and multidirected partiality, they also emphasize the importance of love and its impact on individual identity. In the first part of the book they examine the organizing elements of love and trustworthiness in understanding and assessing human behavior. Section 2 describes the therapeutic work of restoration therapy, covering the essential characteristics of the therapist and the techniques of working with love and trustworthiness. Section 3 gives guidelines on using restoration therapy with couples and using forgiveness in restoration. Annotation 穢2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)