Description:
There was an epidemic of mental ill health before the pandemic. Now it is exponentially worse. At the same time, there have never been more mental health professionals and practices. This contradiction is the background to Jan Resnick's masterpiece, which uses theory, discussion, and case studies to show what is central to therapeutic practice.
Brief description:
Jan Resnick has practised as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist for over 45 years. He trained in London where he was supervised by R. D. Laing, John Heaton, and Christopher Bollas. He moved from Europe to Australia in 1990 where he founded The Churchill Clinic that ran accredited professional trainings in Analytic Psychotherapy & Counselling. The founding president of the Psychotherapists & Counsellors Association of Western Australia, Jan received an Outstanding Achievement award for his contribution to the profession. He was an Editorial Advisory Board member of the national journal Psychotherapy in Australia, where he penned a regular column for over twenty years. An Advisory Board member of Blue Knot Foundation (formerly Adult Survivors of Child Abuse), Jan is also an accredited supervisor for the Royal Australian/New Zealand College of Psychiatrists in psychotherapy and supervises Developmental Paediatricians at the State Child Development Centre (West Perth).
Jan Resnick has a PhD in Psychology (psychoanalysis) based on a psychotherapeutic understanding and treatment of psychosomatic disorders. Over his career, he founded and presided over four separate mental health charities. He has over 100 publishing credits including his first published book, How Two Love: Making Your Relationship Work and Last, based on his clinical work with couples.
Jan lives with his wife Cath in Perth, Western Australia, and has six children and three grandchildren. His practice is Amygdala Consulting where he consults in psychotherapy and offers clinical supervision.
Meaning-Fullness: Developmental Psychotherapy and the Pursuit of Mental Health is Jan's current offering. While critical of standard mental health practices, he offers a different approach that is meaningful and effective. As a specialist publisher in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and mental health Phoenix Publishing House is an obvious choice to produce, promote, and distribute this work.
Review Quotes:
'At a time when so many experience life as hurried and empty ("There is a feeling of running a race but not knowing why or where the finish line is") - and therapy too is increasingly hurried, rote, and occupied with superficial metrics and "efficiency" - Dr Resnick reminds us what meaningful psychotherapy is about. In lucid, unpretentious prose, he walks us into and through the questions at the heart of real psychotherapy: What makes life meaningful? Why does it so often feel meaningless for so many? How can that change? Dr Resnick has written a book for our time that will speak to beginning clinicians and experts both.'
--Jonathan Shedler, Clinical Professor, University of California San Francisco, and author of 'The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy'