Tending Inner Gardens

Book excerpt: Tending Inner Gardens: The Healing Art of Feminist Psychotherapy transforms the theory and practice of psychotherapy, one that values both the feminine and masculine perspectives. Set within a naturalistic framework, this model utilizes nature’s growing and healing processes. It proposes nature’s seasonal cycles as a model for the psychotherapy process, and author Lesley Irene Shore introduces nature’s seasonal cycle as a model for successful psychotherapy and demonstrates how to tune techniques to the rhythms of each season. Dr. Shore speaks with the voice of an experienced psychotherapist, sharing her struggles with therapeutic dilemmas and addressing issues common to every practitioner. She refuses to present simple solutions to the difficult process of helping people grow, yet offers new ways of thinking about this work. Readers will find this a healing book--for themselves as well as for their clients. The book covers relationship issues as well as the use of language, hypnosis, dreams, and creativity. Specific areas readers learn about include: language--teaches therapists to differentiate between questions that address conscious regions of the mind and ones which communicate with less conscious processes. metaphor--describes ways of working with metaphors to access less conscious processes trauma--explores the effects of psychological trauma and offers tools for healing its wounds psychotherapy process--uses nature’s seasonal cycle to chart the process of psychotherapy Tending Inner Gardens transcends the artificial dichotomies currently characterizing much psychological thought. Psychotherapists will be interested in the natural model of psychotherapy which integrates a wide range of ideas and theories, especially the sections on the psychotherapy relationship, dreams, creativity, working with metaphors, language, and the process of psychotherapy. Interesting case studies illuminate this material. Students can benefit from seeing how the tools of psychotherapy are integrated with the art. Laypeople will enjoy reading about Dr. Shore’s personal evolution as a therapist, her life on Harmony Farm, and her cases, which are discussed in detail. While this book is primarily geared toward a professional audience, it attracts a wide range of readers. It should be read by experienced psychotherapists, faculty members, and practitioners, as well as those in training. This would generally include psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, psychiatric nurses, and related professions. And while the book presents a primarily verbal, psychodynamic approach toward healing, its theoretical conceptualization will appeal to professionals in healing traditions such as art therapy, massage therapy, and expressive therapy.