Consulting to Chaos

In clinical work, an awareness of patients'' subjective experiences, particularly their perceptions of interpersonal relationships, is indispensable. The aim of this book is to improve care and treatment planning by describing a structured approach to eliciting patients'' core relationship patterns. These patterns consist of the roles and scenarios into which they repeatedly cast themselves and others with whom they interact. Maladaptive patterns, in which vicious cycles and self-fulfilling prophecies of misperception, misunderstanding or provocation escalate, cause pain and havoc in personal relationships and can adversely affect both professionals'' decisions and the overall delivery of treatment. This book shows how to use vital information that is often not made available to treatment teams in order to understand such potential pitfalls rather than succumb to them.