Presents a new outlook on therapy that utilizes a new set of "tools" that allow patients to use their problems as levers to access the power of the unconscious, allowing for personal growth much faster than traditional therapy.

Autorentext

Phil Stutz graduated from City College in New York and received his MD from New York University. He worked as a prison psychiatrist on Rikers Island and then in private practice in New York before moving his practice to Los Angeles in 1982. He is the subject of the Netflix documentary Stutz.
 
Barry Michels has a BA from Harvard, a law degree from University of California, Berkeley, and an MSW from the University of Southern California. He has been in private practice as a psychotherapist in Los Angeles since 1986.

Klappentext

A groundbreaking book about personal growth that presents a uniquely effective set of five tools that bring about dynamic change by using problems as levers that access the power of the unconscious and propel them into action.

Zusammenfassung
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Change can begin right now. Learn to bring about dynamic personal growth using five uniquely effective tools—from psychotherapist Barry Michels and psychiatrist Phil Stutz, subject of the Netflix documentary Stutz.

“These tools are emotional game changers. They do nothing less than deliver you to your best and most powerful self.”—Kathy Freston, author of Quantum Wellness
 
How long does therapy take? The Tools offers a solution to the biggest complaint patients have about therapy: the interminable wait for change to begin. The traditional therapeutic model sets its sights on the past, but psychiatrist Phil Stutz and psychotherapist Barry Michels employ an arsenal of techniques—“the tools”—that allow patients to use their problems as levers that access the power of the unconscious and propel them into action. Suddenly, through this transformative approach, obstacles become new chances—to find courage, embrace discipline, develop self-expression, deepen creativity.
 
A dynamic, results-oriented practice, The Tools aims to deliver relief from persistent problems and restore control and hope right away. Every day presents challenges—big and small—that the tools transform into opportunities to bring about bold and dramatic change in your life. Stutz and Michels teach you how to:
 
• Get Unstuck: **Master the things you are avoiding and live in forward motion.
• Control Anger: **Free yourself from out-of-control rage and never-ending grudges.
• Express Yourself: Learn the secret of true confidence and find your authentic voice.
• Combat Anxiety: Stop obsessive worrying and negative thinking.
• Find Discipline: Activate willpower and make the most of every minute.
 
With The Tools, Stutz and Michels allow you to realize the full range of your potential. Their goal is nothing less than for your life to become exceptional—exceptional in its resiliency, in its experience of real happiness, and in its understanding of the human spirit.

Leseprobe
CHAPTER 1

Revelation of a New Way

Roberta was a new psychotherapy patient who made me feel completely ineffective within fifteen minutes of meeting her. She had come to me with a very specific goal: she wanted to stop obsessing about the idea that her boyfriend was cheating on her. “I go through his messages, grill him with questions; sometimes I even drive by his place to spy on him. I never find anything but I can’t stop myself.” I thought her problem was easily explained by the fact that her father had abruptly deserted the family when she was a child. Even now, in her mid-twenties, she was still terrified of abandonment. But before we could delve into that issue more deeply, she looked me in the eye and demanded, “Tell me how I can stop obsessing. Don’t waste my time and money on why I’m insecure—I already know.”

If Roberta came to see me today, I’d be thrilled that she knew exactly what she wanted, and I’d know exactly how to help her. But my meeting with her took place twenty-five years ago when I was a new psychotherapist. I felt the directness of her request shoot through me like an arrow. I had no response.

I didn’t blame myself. I had just spent two years devouring every current theory of psychotherapeutic practice. But the more information I digested, the more unsatisfied I became. The theories felt removed from the actual experience someone would have when he or she was in trouble and needed help. I felt in my gut that I hadn’t been taught a way to respond directly to what a patient like Roberta was asking for.

I wondered, Maybe I can’t pick up this ability from a book; maybe it can be learned only in face-to-face consultation with someone who’d been in the trenches. I had developed close ties to two of my supervisors—not only did they know me well, but they had many decades of clinical experience. Surely, they must have developed some way to meet these requests.

I described Roberta’s demand to them. Their response confirmed my worst fears. They had no solution. Worse, what seemed to me like a reasonable request, they saw as part of her problem. They used a lot of clinical terms: Roberta was “impulsive,” “resistant,” and “craved immediate gratification.” If I tried to meet her immediate needs, they warned me, she would actually become more demanding.

Unanimously, they advised me to guide her back to her childhood—there we would find what caused the obsession in the first place. I told them she already knew why she was obsessed. Their answer was that her father’s abandonment couldn’t be the real reason. “You have to go even deeper into her childhood.” I was fed up with this runaround: I’d heard it before—every time a patient made a direct request, the therapist would turn it back on the patient and tell him or her to “go deeper.” It was a shell game they used to hide the truth: when it came to immediate help, these therapists had very little to give to their patients. Not only was I disappointed, I had the sinking feeling that my supervisors were speaking for the entire psychotherapeutic profession—certainly I’d never heard anyone say anything else. I didn’t know where to turn.

Then I got lucky. A friend told me he’d met a psychiatrist who didn’t accept the system any more than I did. “This guy actually answers your questions—and I guarantee you’ve never heard these answers before.” He was giving a series of seminars, and I decided to go to the next one. That was where I met Dr. Phil Stutz, the coauthor of this book.

That seminar changed my practice—and my life.

Everything about the way Phil thought seemed completely new. More important, in my gut it felt like the truth. He was the first psychotherapist I’d met whose focus was on the solution, not the problem. He was absolutely confident that human beings possessed untapped forces that allowed them to solve their own problems. In fact, his view of problems was the opposite of what I’d been taught. He didn’t see them as handicapping the patient; he saw them as opportunities to enter this world of untapped potential.

I was skeptical at first. I’d heard about turning problems into opportunities before, but no one had ever explained exactly how to do this. Phil made it clear and concrete. You had to tap into hidden resources by means of certain powerful but simple techniques that anyone could use.

He called these techniques “tools.”…