 Hello and welcome to MIPP TV, the TV channel dedicated to Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy and of course its activities which are huge. There's lots of stuff going on and today I'm with Bob Cook from MIPP and he's going to share with us one of his favourite books. Isn't that right Bob? Well yes it's a really good opportunity for me to share this book. It's the fourth review we've done of these books and the last one we did was T.A. Today by Ian Stewart. So I'm going to follow on with another book written by him and it's called Personality Adaptations written by him and Van Joins from America and they wrote this wonderful book on really how they looked at how we've become the way we are and looked at the different adaptations that we might follow in the sense of functioning. It became a really well-known book on psychotherapy courses. People used it not only for interest but also how to diagnose clients and how to look at how we actually can work with them through appropriate psychotherapy sequences. So I'm taking a read to you a paragraph of this book which is at the back of their book. So this is what Ian Stewart says at the back of his Personality Adaptations book. This book is a practical guide to understanding personality. It presents a research-based model of six personality adaptations. Psychotherapists and cancers whether in practice or in training will find this model an invaluable aid to effectiveness in inviting personal change. So what he does is look at different adaptations such as schizoid adaptation, the paranoid adaptation, the obsessive compulsive adaptation, the paranoid adaptation and the antisocial adaptation and they look at different channels of contact. How we can contact these types of people through different levels of contact. So as psychotherapists in training as we learn our skills we can actually have an actual guide of how we can work with these people at the beginning, middle and end of psychotherapy. It's absolutely fascinating to look at the characteristics, the features that make up these particular adaptations that we all have by the way. Yeah so it sounds to me Bob and for those of you watching it may not be psychotherapists. Psychotherapists and certainly in the TA world diagnose so in other words as part of the training there's a diagnostic module where students can effectively work with clients and diagnose what may be troubling them. Do you want to say a bit more about that Bob because I think that's interesting. A lot of counsellors would say we don't diagnose so just tell us a little bit about how that works. Well it's quite simple, it's how we became or how we become the way we are. So if somebody comes with certain troubles or low mood or particular traits inhibit their functioning it's good to think of having some models for us and them to understand how they became how they are today. Now diagnosis is certainly one word for you know looking or giving people a model of how they become the way they are and you know there's arguments for and against looking at diagnostic models but for me personally I think it aids beginning therapists to have some sort of structure to think of well when somebody's coming with these types of features maybe they're actually depressed or maybe they have obsessions and or maybe they're withdrawn and what can we do to meet these people in a way to enhance their personal growth and effectiveness. Now we can we certainly can think about in terms of not diagnosing and just working with the contact between the two of us and looking at the relationship and what comes up in the space of the relationship I think is useful to think of how the past affects the present and what actually happens in a person's life but they go down this particular road and how can we meet them in that road. So this book really outlines the types of personality and how they develop so therapists can get a clear view of what that personality functioning looks like and gives a clear path into how to work and treat with and help the clients either come to terms with or work with their their personality function. Yeah so for example let's just take one of those adaptations let's look at the what is called the schizoid adaptation which of course is quite a medical word I understand that but it simply means split right that's what schizoid means it means to split and those sorts of people they sort of will present disconnected from the world they'll present disconnected from their self and they'll present disconnected from you and they'll have a certain levels of passivity and usually their issues are about how to be in the world in a vibrant spontaneous way where they can be in relationships connected and feeling a sense of power rather than being you know back in their own dungeon or their own castle or disconnected from the other so they're so withdrawn they feel out of sync with people yeah people or the human race if you like yeah so if you have got some some thinking about how to meet these types of people and understanding how they become how they are then you can help a person connect this type of person connect to be in the world so they feel more a sense of belonging and are more effective in human communication and have a model that helps the therapist in these sorts of processes are so valuable I think especially if you get to train people to be therapists and how to work with people from all different types of adaptations yes so this book clearly outlines the different forms of personality adaptation and it also informs a clear way of working with that so why why is this book so useful to therapists and indeed trainee therapists what is it that makes this book so accessible bob because it gives a very clear guide how to work effectively with different types of character styles so somebody who's paranoid you would connect with them in a different way than somebody who is hysterical or somebody who is obsessive and if and if we can contact those people the way that they don't see feel so overwhelmed we are on the road to understanding them so good this gives a book to help us understand how we communicate with different character styles and once we can understand that we're on the road to the two people really understanding the subjective world of the other so they can feel understood and really you know get better really I mean it feels it feels to me like the the book is written especially for for trainees yeah and it also feels to me like this this book is going to be a almost like a guidebook for trainees to get a sense of a what the personality adaptation is and also how do I work with that in a therapeutic way how do I connect to those clients with that particular adaptation yeah to affect better communication and cure yeah so have you got any favorite chapters in the book any any chapters or any parts of the book bob that kind of you think you find yourself going back to I know when I get a book sometimes it's got a crease in it when I've gone back to have a look and to refresh myself is anything is anything is any creases in your books bob two or three really I do like the chapter which gives an overview of the different adaptations and the different channels that we indeed need to address with the particular adaptation for better communication because it gives me an aid memoir to be able to think about how to contact different types of people so I like that on a more personal level if you like I identify more with the schizoid traits inside myself so I found it very useful for myself in terms of thinking about well you know how how do I actually move into these places myself and what needs to happen for me to move out of them and it reminds me of my own personal therapy and my own therapist how they met the you know withdrawn cut off parts of myself and how between the two of us my therapist and myself became out into the world so I was more comfortable in relationships so that's the personal identification when I think of the schizoid um the chapter on schizoid adaptation so from a personal point of view I identify with that particular chapter but I very much like the overall you know the chapter deals with the overall um connecting the four that these six adaptations and how we can address different adaptations in different ways to meet the different character style styles yeah so it's a very a very enriching book um it's even if you're not therapist it's interesting because I can guarantee you that you will personally identify with particular character adaptations so there'll be a personal identification as well so for in terms of interest in terms of aiding communication it's interesting but as a trainee therapist it gives you a structure and a way of working with different people come before you in the therapy room yeah so what I'm hearing Bob is for you the book has a professional um a professional interest that refreshes you and refreshes your practice it's a got a personal connection about your own um personality style or your own perspective on it and also it allows you to I guess be able to access that information and teach it and help others students gain a a sense of what it is and how to work with it and gives them a map yes about how to work with different character styles what else can you ask for well indeed it seems like a very comprehensive book and just remind us again Bob what what it's called we'll put a picture up it's course personality adaptations by Ian Stewart and Van Joins yeah and there's a pic the very viewers can see a picture there and what we'll do is we'll put a link below um to the Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy website and also to a place where they can live I think he's live live share publishing that publish the book and um and you can you can peruse it there so Bob Cook it's always a pleasure interviewing about your favourite books the passion of um your knowledge and the passion of your reading you know the connection to the literature is playing for everyone to say so Bob Cook thank you very much thank you bye bye