Download Author: Hedges, Lawrence E. Ph.D., Psy.D., ABPP

Lawrence E. Hedges, Ph.D., Psy.D., ABPP is a psychologist-psychoanalyst in private practice in Orange, California, specializing in the training of psychotherapists and psychoanalysts.  He is director of the Listening Perspectives Study Center and the founding director of the Newport Psychoanalytic Institute in Tustin, California where he is a supervising and training psychoanalyst.  He is an Assistant Professor at The University of California Irvine Medical School, the Department of Psychiatry.  Dr. Hedges is author of numerous papers and books on the practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy including Listening Perspectives in Psychotherapy; Facing the Challenge of Liability in Psychotherapy:  Practicing Defensively andSex in Psychotherapy: Sexuality, Passion, Love and Desire in the Therapeutic Encounter.In addition, Dr. Hedges offers live video and book based Continuing Education courses for mental health professionals based on many of his books; to learn more visit sfrankelgroup.com.
20 eBooks available.

Terror in Psychotherapy

Contemporary neuroscience, infant research, and relational psychotherapy make clear that we are a relational species—that our brain and neurological systems actually organize in the first year of life depending on the relationships that are and are not available. By the second year of life a symbiotic interaction is becoming established characterized by mutual affect regulation and mutual attachment experiences.  Dr. Hedges demonstrates how trauma experienced during these “organizing” and “symbiotic” levels of relational development stimulates fear, anxiety, and terror that have profound consequences for later relationships—and in extreme forms lay the foundation for suicide and homicide. A series of case vignettes illustrate how early relational intrusive trauma produce terror in transference and countertransference experiencing.

The Call of Darkness: a Relational Listening Approach to Suicide Intervention

The White House has declared suicide to be a national and international epidemic and has mandated suicide prevention training for educational and health workers nationwide. The Call of Darkness was written in response to that mandate and begins with the awareness that our ability to predict suicide is little better than chance and that at present there are no consistently reliable empirically validated treatment techniques to prevent suicide. However, in the past three decades much has been learned about the dynamics of suicide and promising treatment approaches have been advanced that are slowly yielding clinical as well as empirical results.

In this book, Dr. Hedges presents the groundbreaking work on suicidality of Freud, Jung, Menninger and Shneidman as well as the more recent work of Linehan, Kernberg, Joiner and the attachment theorists along with the features in common that these treatment approaches seem to share. He puts forth a Relational Listening approach regarding the origins of suicidality in a relational/developmental context and will consider their implications for treating, and managing suicidality. The tendencies towards blame and self-blame on the part of survivors raise issues of professional responsibility. Dr Hedges discusses accurate assessment, thorough documentation, appropriate standards of care, and liability management (402 pgs).

Review:

In his new book The Call of Darkness: A Relational Listening Approach to Suicide Intervention Dr. Hedges turns his attention to the topic of suicide both generally and specifically in how it relates to the impact of therapists’ work with their patients.  Those already familiar with Dr. Hedges Relational Listening Perspective will understand his view of suicidality as a relational problem at its core established in the early “organizing” level of development.  For those just being introduced to the work of Dr. Hedges, they will receive an excellent primer on his thought process and unique approach to psychotherapy and analytic work.  However, this book presents much more than one theorist’s views on the subject. This well researched book covers just about everything one could hope to know about suicidality from its history and impact on society to famous examples, theoretical approaches and suggestions for treatment. Ultimately the greatest take away from this book may be to remove some of the mystery and fear surrounding the topic of suicide making it easier to approach the topic and work with patients in the consulting room especially with those suffering from their own Call of Darkness.” — Brendan M. Baer M.A., LMFT

Relational Listening: A Handbook

In this brilliantly accessible RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVES HANDBOOK, Hedges is now offering the reader a crisply streamlined overview of his four Relational Listening Perspectives, with a few modifications and subtle refinements. He makes a fascinating distinction that many psychotherapies in vogue today (e.g., positive psychology, supportive therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, mindfulness meditation, and cognitive behavior therapy) focus on building up adaptive capacity by fostering neuroplasticity and the creation of new synaptic linkages in the brain, which of course is all well and good. But Hedges goes on to compare these psychotherapies to psychoanalytic therapy, which focuses first on breaking down the client’s limiting relational patterns – patterns that had been interfering with healthy relatedness – and then on working through these constricting patterns in the context of the therapy relationship. This continuously evolving analytic process involves negotiating the various transference / countertransference entanglements that will continuously emerge between client and therapist – such that there can be eventual transformation of underlying relational fears, revision of templates and scripts, and expansion of relational possibilities. (96 pp.)

Overcoming Our Relationship Fears:WORKBOOK

A series of exercises for individuals and couples who wish to learn how to release their Body-Mind-Relationship fear reflexes.  (285 pp.)

Also available in a Lithuanian translation.

Relational Interventions:Treating Borderline, Bipolar, Schizophrenic, Psychotic, and Characterological Personality Organization

How therapists can position themselves with respect to the varieties of relational experiences which constrict the patient. (200 pp.)

Reviews:

Dr. Lawrence Hedges has done it again – another outstanding masterpiece! Relational Interventions is a veritable tour de force. Although its focus is on the relational constrictedness that can arise from unmastered early-on organizing and symbiotic experience and on how therapists can then position themselves with respect to the varieties of relational experience to which that constrictedness gives rise, this beautifully crafted, stunningly accessible gem of a volume does so much more! It also serves as a dazzlingly concise overview of Hedges’ four well-known developmental listening perspectives (organizing, symbiotic, selfobject, and self-other) and the relational limitations, fears, habits, templates, scripts, enactments, and rules of engagement that each perspective is designed to address. Most remarkable is Hedges’ ever-respectful attentiveness to the uniqueness and individuality of the client and to the moment-by-moment contributions of both client and therapist to all that emerges in the sacred and intimate space between them – amply demonstrated in the numbers of case vignettes that this master clinician so generously and vulnerably offers the reader. Hedges, at once dazzlingly brilliant, breathtakingly astute, deeply humble, and able to go where many fear to tread, has created a trailblazing classic that you not only need to have in your library but you must also revisit again and again – each time listening (from a different perspective) to the timeless words of wisdom contained within this extraordinary book…

Martha Stark, MD
Faculty, Harvard Medical School
Author, Working with Resistance A Primer on Working with Resistance, and Modes of Therapeutic Action

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A Comprehensive Explanation of Working with Therapeutic Relationships

As a clinician, I am oriented by the classical and developmental object relations perspectives. Dr. Hedges’ book reminds the reader that it is only in the context of connected therapeutic relationship that any theory-driven technique or interpretations have any therapeutic action. Is is through this relationship that the psychotherapist and the patient learn and gain progressive insight into the patient’s history and present-life struggles. Whether or not one agrees with Dr. Hedges’ technique, I believe that any seasoned and effective clinician realizes and becomes immersed in connection and breaks in connection in treatment. This book offers a comprehensive, applicable, and contemporary explication of working with therapeutic relationships. I highly recommend this book for clinicians at all levels of experience.

Barry Ross, Ph.D.
Psychologist/Psychoanalyst

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A Work of Therapeutic Genius

It is now generally accepted that the relationship is the most important factor in the outcome of psychotherapy. But, as Hedges illustrates, this involves much more than a good therapeutic alliance. It involves how that relationship is used in reenactments of historically determined interactional patterns that are imbued with psychopathology. Using a psychodynamic developmental psychology, Hedges tells us how we can listen for the basic existential issues presented and the basic adjustment strategies that we all use to cope with them. Then with numerous case studies from the literature, from his colleagues, and from his own practice, he illustrates how troubled interaction patterns can be transformed through the use of the therapeutic relationship. The trick is twofold: 1) knowing how to listen and intervene at the developmental level of the client and 2) having the willingness to involve oneself in the mutual intensity of the interaction. That is what Hedges teaches here. This is a work of therapeutic genius. Donʼt miss it.

Stephen M. Johnson, Ph.D.
Author of Character Styles

Facing Our Cumulative Developmental Traumas

Facing Our Cumulative Developmental Traumas provides meaningful, creative, and useful answers to the question: How can we help others through their deep personal struggles without scaring them off? This question is central to love, to intimacy, and to psychotherapy.

It has now become clear that Cumulative Developmental Trauma is universal. That is, there is no way to grow up and walk the planet without being repeatedly swallowed up by emotional and relational demands from other people. When we become confused, frightened, and overwhelmed, our conscious and unconscious minds seek remedies to deal with the situation. Unfortunately many of the solutions developed in response to intrusive events turn into habitual fear reflexes that get in our way later in life, giving rise to post traumatic stress and relational inhibitions. This book is about freeing ourselves from the cumulative effects of our life’s many relational traumas and the after-effects of those traumas that continue to constrict our capacities for creative, spontaneous, and passionate living.

“In this book as in all his work, Larry urges us to be fully human, cheering us on while simultaneously mourning our early trauma with us. You will enjoy his deeply optimistic and loving vision while you read this book. You have chosen the guide for your next psychological and emotional adventure wisely.” –Marty Klein, Ph.D.