Control is a central aspect in all schools of therapy, health care, and indeed, our human existence. This book presents, and then integrates, a unifying theory of human control with a clinically relevant control-based approach to psychotherapy, health, and healing.
At its most basic level, this book will help make clinicians and health care professionals more sensitive to the topic of control in working with patients and clients. Among the central questions in every psychotherapeutic encounter are: How much control does the patient have over his or her life? Are control efforts functional or dysfunctional? and How can the patient learn higher levels of effective control in cognitive, behavioral, and affective realms? We argue that control can be viewed as a connecting piece among therapies, providing a metacontext for understanding and utilizing imaginal, cognitive, and behavioral self-control techniques.
Our research demonstrates that people have different control profiles and styles. Some modes of control are more effective in certain domains than others, and the salience and utility of these modes change over the course of the life cycle. Mastery in one area at one time does not ensure mastery in other areas at the same or different times. This book outlines different modes by which control can be gained and offers guidelines for choosing the optimal mode of control in a given situation for a particular person.
The book will help therapists and health care professionals provide their clients and patients with the tools and. understanding needed to gain a healthy sense of control in their own lives. It will help those who feel like victims overcome that victimization, and those who are too controlling to learn more balanced ways of living. To do this, we address Paul's (1966) classic formulation for psychotherapy research, restated in control terms: "What control-related intervention is most effective for this individual patient with this specific control profile and with this particular control-related problem?"
The book helps refine and make more precise the matching of particular control strategies to individual patients with specific clinical problems. It describes a set of general principles for framing and interpreting therapeutic situations; identifies and defines control assumptions; illustrates how control is both a personality variable and an outcome measure; and offers practical, control-based therapeutic techniques. These principles and interventions provide a therapeutic, theory-based metamodel for use with a wide variety of clinical issues across multiple domains. Thus, the most practical goal of this book involves widening the base of clinical practice. As Garfield and Bergin (1986) note, the majority of clinicians today are eclectic. This book provides them with one more tool in their armamentarium. It shows how control can be integrated into the therapists' own theoretical orientation-whether cognitive, behavioral, psychoanalytic, existential, family systems, or other.
The answer to Paul's question is equally applicable in examining the role of control in physical health. Control is a central concept within health psychology and behavioral medicine. It is especially salient with the current emphasis on prevention, changing behavior, and lifestyle and health attitudes, and in coping with the loss of control that can accompany physical illness.
The CT Book is available in PDF format and is separated in to sections for ease of reading and download.
