Review: Making Contact: Uses of Language in Psychotherapy

Making Contact: Uses of Language in Psychotherapy by Leston Havens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I adore this book. In grad school in my psychology program, it influenced me beyond what I can describe. Havens writes from an interpersonal, subjective, phenomenological, linguistic perspective. The empathy he heaps on the subject matter--and on his clients--is a marvel. He describes and elucidates with such clarity his language choices, the way he talks to clients, his choice of words, phrases and questions, his statements. Always, he was mindful of not making the client feel accused and to extract maximum information while being optimally therapeutic. His words, as he teaches, drips with kindness and gentleness; his presence itself is healing, and somehow he magically transfers and embodies this in his writing. This book became lodged in my soul and I took to heart his way of Being, to the point that each time I'm with a client, his words reinforce who I already was. I fell more than a little bit in love with, oddly one of my guiding theoretical idols. The world of psychiatry and psychology was lucky he chose these realms. He gifted us, beyond the arc of people he directly touched, to those us who indirectly benefited from his wisdom. Please, if you're in the profession--or about to go into it, do yourself a favor and read it. If you're a client in therapy, read it and share with your therapist. If you're not in therapy but contemplating it, read it for it surely will tempt you to take the therapeutic plunge :-) And if you fit in neither of these groups and simply want a terrific read by a master of storytelling with prose as clear as lake, read it.

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