Psychology for Lawyers: A First Look at Psychotherapy

Willard Gaylin, Talk Is Not Enough: How Psychotherapy Really Works 31-51 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 2000)

Elizabeth Kilpatrick, "What Do You Do in Analysis?" in Karen Horney (ed.), Are You Considering Psychoanalysis? 159-185 (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1946)

Leston Havens, Coming to Life 28-43 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993)

George Weinberg, The Heart of Psychotherapy: A Journey into the Mind and Office of the Therapist at Work 78-112 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984)

Rick Friedman, On Becoming a Trial Lawyer 160-169 (Trial Guides, 2008)

Class Video

Class Viewing

"Walter" | In Treatment (HBO) | Season 2, Dk. 1, Episode 4 [25:37 mins.]

Study Questions

In this episode of "In Treatment," we get a firsthand look at how a psychotherapist--one kind of psychotherpist--works with a patient. We are curious about how psychotherapists work because we want to see if what is done in the practice of psychotherapy might be of use to lawyers in the counseling that lawyers undertake.

How would you describe what Dr. Paul Weston does in this first psychotherapy session with Walter Barnett?

What patterns, if any, do you detect in the way Dr. Weston talks to and works with Walter Barnett?

What do we learn about "psychology" in the way Walter Barnett describes his "problem, and the way he proposes to deal with his problem?

What kind of counseling skills would you need as a lawyer to deal with Walter Barnett as a legal client?

What kind of skills would you need as a lawyer to deal with the father of Dr. Weston's patient, whose estate is now suing Dr. Weston for malpractice? (We see the patient's father serving Dr. Weston with the complain in the "In Treatment" episode screened the first day of class.)

In Class Viewing 1: Louis Cozolino on Facing Your Fears about Therapy [1:48 mins.] [Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University]

In Class Viewing 2: Psychotherapy [3:13 mins.] [Norman Anderson, American Psychological Association] [arguing that psychotherapy is effective]

In Class Viewing 3: What is Psychoanalysis? [8:39 mins.] [Freud Museum London] [begin at 3:36 mins. & end at 8:10 mins.] [Astrid Gessert is a psychoanalyst] [[commentary on panic attacks and a psychoanalytic approach] [Dany Norbus is a professor of psychology, clinical psychologist, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and Chair of the Freud Museum London]

An Interview of Adam Phillips
[57:31 mins.] [the introduction of Adam Phillips begins at 0:36 mins., ends at 1:42 mins.; Phillips comment relevant to Walter Barnett's session with Dr. Weston begins at 52:28 mins. and ends at 54:17 mins.]

An Interview with Christopher Bollas
[26:46 mins.] [Bollas introduces himself and talks about mental life, begins at 0:37 mins., ends at 4:18 mins.; comments on psychiatry and medication, begin at 13:50 mins., ends at 16:08 mins. (these comments can be presented as a follow-up on the Norman Anderson, "Psychotherapy" video presented in class]

A Psychotherapist Is an Engineer of the Soul
[4:20 mins.] [Jordan Peterson] [expressing admiration for Carl Rogers, and Rogers's focus on listening; different clients respond to different approaches]

James Hillman on Archetypal Psychotherapy & the Soulless Society
[7:39 mins.] [talking about psyche, revisioning psychology; "psychotherapy has set itself up as helping the disturbed . . . making things secure"; "the psyche upsets us" (the question: "why is this disturbance coming?" "what does it want?"); "where are we?" "where are we now?" "look at the lack of psychology"; we should start with where we are now (and the lack of psychology)] [end presentation at 5:03 mins.] [Hillman goes on to talk about soul; "psychology is afraid of soul"; psychology should be a study of the soul (but it's not, as university's present it)]

Psychology for Lawyers

a first look at psychotherapy