Breakdown and Breakthrough: Psychotherapy in a New Dimension

This is an examination of the essential role of regression in the patient's recovery from mental illness. In light of this Nathan Field reassesses the role of the therapist tracing psychotherapy back to its earliest spiritual roots and comparing modern analytic methods with ancient practices of healing and exorcism. The author uses vivid examples from his psychotherapeutic practice to show how, with the apparent breakdown of the therapeutic method itself, patients can break through to a new level of functioning. The book goes on to consider how psychotherapy has been affected by fundamental developments in 20th century science, such as the move from old, classical assumptions of linear causation to non-linear complexity; from reductionism to a holistic-systems approach; from mental mechanisms to acknowledging the mysteries of unconscious interaction. Taking up the radical vision originally proposed by Carl Jung and later fostered by eminent psychotherapists such as Winnicott and Bion, the author shows how psychotherapy can be reframed to admit the existence of a psychological fourth dimension.