Voice Therapy

Voice Therapy: A Psychotherapeutic Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior is a thought-provoking work that provides clinicians with a detailed description of Voice Therapy, an innovative therapeutic procedure developed by Dr. Robert W. Firestone that can be used to elicit and bring to the foreground negative thought patterns antithetical to the self and cynical toward others (the critical inner voice). Compelling case histories illustrate the core defense and its effect on patients’ personality and behavior. The approach is unique in that it unifies cognitive, existential, and psychoanalytic frameworks and is a comprehensive theory of resistance to any form of psychotherapeutic intervention, personal progress, or development.

Voice Therapy: A Psychotherapeutic Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior is a thought-provoking work that provides clinicians with a detailed description of Voice Therapy, an innovative therapeutic procedure developed by Dr. Robert W. Firestone that can be used to elicit and bring to the foreground negative thought patterns antithetical to the self and cynical toward others (the critical inner voice). Compelling case histories illustrate the core defense and its effect on patients’ personality and behavior. The approach is unique in that it unifies cognitive, existential, and psychoanalytic frameworks and is a comprehensive theory of resistance to any form of psychotherapeutic intervention, personal progress, or development.

Robert W. Firestone Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, author and artist, who has established a comprehensive body of written work and film focused on understanding how defenses are formed and how they impact human behavior and personal relationships. The primary emphasis of Dr. Firestone’s theory has centered on the study of resistance in psychotherapy. From his initial work as a psychotherapist with schizophrenic patients under the auspices of Dr. John N. Rosen, Dr. Firestone summarized his conceptualizations about schizophrenia in a theoretical dissertation entitled “A Concept of the Schizophrenic Process,” (University of Denver Doctoral Dissertation, 1957). Dr. Firestone was engaged in the private practice of psychotherapy from 1957 to 1979 working with a wide range of patients, expanding his original ideas on schizophrenia, and applying these concepts to a theory of neurosis. In 1979, he joined the Glendon Association as its consulting theorist. Dr. Firestone’s major publications include The Fantasy Bond, Compassionate Child-Rearing, Fear of Intimacy, and Beyond Death Anxiety: Life-Affirming Death Awareness. Dr. Firestone’s studies of negative thought processes led to the development of an innovative therapeutic methodology described in Voice Therapy, Suicide and the Inner Voice, Combating Destructive Thought Processes, Creating a Life of Meaning and Compassion: The Wisdom of Psychotherapy, Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships, The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships, and most recently The Self under Siege. In collaboration with his daughter, Dr. Lisa Firestone, he has developed three assessment instruments: The Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts [FAST], The Firestone Assessment of Suicide Intent [FASI] (2006) and the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts [FAVT] (2008) (Adult and Adolescent versions (2009, Psychological Assessment Resources, PAR).