Reflecting on Therapy

Thinking back on over fifty years’ experience as a therapist and supervisor, Michael Jacobs invites you to pause and reflect with him on some of the fascinating and crucial aspects of the therapeutic relationship. A book to be savoured like a fine wine, full of wisdom from a life in the field, offering space for thought in today’s

Michael Jacobs is the author of key texts, such as Psychodynamic Counselling in Action and The Presenting Past. Looking back over fifty years’ experience as a therapist and reflecting on some forty years as a supervisor and teacher, he invites you to join him and reflect upon issues uncovered in the therapy room. Therapists are encouraged to engage in reflective practice, thinking through what they are saying and doing, together with presenting their work in supervision in order to engage in fine-tuning their insight and skills. However, it is hard to find the time with so many demands pressing in. Michael presents various situations, phrases and practices which may evade reflection since they are so common in the consulting room, or which may challenge assumptions that easily become habitual in a therapist’s practice. He unpacks apparent conventional phrases, such as ‘How are you?’, ‘Did you see …?’, ‘And …’. He says the unsayable, looks at the place of CPD, questions ‘expertise’, the impact of failure, Freud’s cigars, expectations on the therapist, being a therapist, the value of apologies, letting be, niggles, the vicissitudes of memory, the pointlessness of questions, what therapists miss, hopes, goals, taboos, finishing therapy, money, notes … and many, many more significant possibilities that arise in the course of a week’s regular sessions. This beautiful little book contains space within for your own notes, thoughts, and reflections after each reflection from Michael. This gives you the opportunity to ponder, to savour, to develop or disagree on the ideas you encounter. Take your time, slow down, and allow your thoughts to grow.

1. There's no hurry—how you might use these reflections
2. 'How are you?'
3. Being outrageous
4. Saying 'No'
5. Developing practice
6. Emptying and opening
7. What is expertise?
8. Balancing the ship
9. And...?
10. More than a parrot
11. Quick to judge
12. A flexible core
13. My friend failure
14. Outbursts and inbursts
15. Did you see...?
16. As if...
17. Taking the flak
18. A sprinkling of CPD
19. The way
20. A cigar is a cigar is a cigar
21. Great expectations
22. What do you do?
23. Fears and wishes
24. Apologies
25. The ambivalence of the therapist
26. The ambivalence of the therapist—further thoughts
27. Let be
28. Silence
29. Outcomes and goals
30. The response
31. Niggles
32. There's always a flip side
33. Enriching practice
34. I don't like...
35. Pressure
36. Questions
37. Difference
38. Remembering
39. What did you miss out?
40. His (or her or their) therapist's voice
41. Hope
42. Gifts
43. Leaving therapy
44. Alone or lonely?
45. Taboo
46. Money
47. Does one size really fit all?
48. Notes
49. Co-creation
50. The mysterium

• By (author) Michael Jacobs

‘Jacobs incorporates theory to lend weight to his reflections, demonstrating various therapeutic perspectives and enabling him to ask the question, “Does one size fit all?” This book would be of value to trainee and newly qualified therapists but also to established practitioners, encouraging them to take time for reflection.’

— Rachael Sharrad MBACP, child and adolescent psychotherapist, ‘Therapy Today’, Feb 2025, Vol.36:1