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PrefaceThis book is the culmination of the teaching and writing that I have done over the last several years in which I try to speak about the value of a psychodynamic approach from a practical perspective. Although, when I was a health psychology student, I was trained as a cognitive behavioral therapist, I felt that these approaches were limited in terms of treating patients who struggle with bodily limitations. I was fortunate enough to discover psychodynamic theory in my last year of graduate school, but then had the chance to learn more from my supervisors while in internship about a more nuanced and sophisticated way of understanding the mind. It was not until I landed in San Francisco for my post-doc year, however, that I began to fully appreciate the value of a psychodynamic approach. The teachers here in the San Francisco Bay Area represent not only diverse views of contemporary thought, but also a community of talented and committed clinicians who are striving to understand the ways that they can help their patients to get better. Yet, given my training with medically ill adults, I found that some applications of psychodynamic theory, especially those that represented more traditional forms of thought, did not quite speak about the experiences of my patients who were struggling with the devastating effects of illness as well as the blows of aging. It is these gaps in the theory that have informed my writing and teaching most recently. Although contemporary theories offer the student of psychodynamic perspectives a glimpse into the incredible minds of the authors/clinicians, a common complaint is that much of this writing does not provide access to or understanding of the theory in a way that most people can comprehend. Currently, data show the limits of short-term approaches for complicated patients, which create a need for psychodynamic clinicians to make our work and our ideas more accessible, transparent, and readable.This book attempts to bridge the best of contemporary psychodynamic theory with what I have found to be true for the patients I have treated over the years who have acute and chronic illnesses and who have wrestled with the bodily declines associated with aging. Psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theorists have been hesitant to apply their concepts to people who are aging and/or medically ill. This history will be briefly described in Chapter 1, as well as the real challenges medically...
