The specific guidelines to the clinical management of the bored or boring patient--offered in this provocative book--will be valuable to all psychotherapists. Contributors discuss the fascinating theories and therapies of boredom--why it is both a necessity and an obstacle to a person's development. Fresh insights into the meaning of boredom for the patient or the therapist (or both) are presented through the discussion of such topics as the type of person most prone to boredom, boredom as a launching point into other experiences, boredom as a defense against strong affects and drive derivatives, the manifestations of boredom in marital therapy clients, and much more.

E. Mark Stern

Chapter 1 Boredom as a Text in Waiting: A Preface, E. Mark Stern; Chapter 2 An Awakening and Complexity, E. Mark Stern; Chapter 3 Boredom: Theory and Therapy, Timothy K. De Chenne, Andrea J. Moody; Chapter 4 The Bored and Boring Patient, Douglas L. Gerardi, Samuel M. Natale; Chapter 5 Functions of Boredom: Treatment Implications, Ann Q. Hozier; Chapter 6 Characterological Boredom as Symptom and Tragedy, Deborah Rinzler; Chapter 7 The Bored Patient: A Developmental/Existential Perspective, Sanford L. Drob, Harold S. Bernard; Chapter 8 Treating the Bored Client with Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), Albert Ellis; Chapter 9 Client-Therapist Boredom: What Does it Mean and What Do We Do?, James D. McHolland; Chapter 10 The Use of the Therapist's Self in the Treatment of the Bored Patient, Warren Wilner; Chapter 11 The Bored Client: A Logotherapy Approach, James E. Lantz; Chapter 12 Transition Boredom, David B. Seaburn; Chapter 13 On the Feeling of Longing with Schizophrenic Patients, Louis Birner; Chapter 14 Boredom in Marital Therapy: A Clinician's Reflections, William C. Nichols; Chapter 15 Some Lively Thoughts on Boredom, Johanna Krout Tabin; Chapter 16 Holding On When You Feel Like Letting Go, Robert W. Gunn; Chapter 17 Paralysis of the Soul: When Life Becomes Boredom, Jan Burte, Daniel L. Araoz;