A breakthrough therapy in the mental health field, Rebuilding Therapy was developed by psychologist Michael Gass, primarily, as a means of assisting individuals and families in rebuilding psychologically from past mistreatment, dysfunction, or trauma. It incorporates methodology, techniques, and theory from Psychodrama, a vital part of Rebuilding Therapy, while integrating Transactional Analysis, primarily Structural Analysis and the influence of Script Analysis, and Redecision Therapy to create its distinctive theoretical foundations, methods, and approaches. Relaxation exercises or relaxation, which is equivalent to hypnosis, is used as needed.
Rebuilding Therapy is based on the belief that a person is basically the product of his or her past. Its primary focus is for the patient to clinically relive major abusive, rejecting, traumatic, or negative life experiences in order to face unhealthy feelings, thinking, and decisions associated with them, which the patient can then release, change, and rebuild from. In addition to postbirth experiences, Rebuilding Therapy pays attention to prenatal influences and the birth process, regarding their effect on psychological functioning and personality development, while also addressing these factors therapeutically. Rebuilding Therapy also has the methodology to solely work with present issues as needed. In the first book on this reconstructive therapy, Gass details its theoretical foundations, methodology, and approaches to acquaint mental health and related professionals with its value on a short and long term basis; to expand on the understanding of personality development and psychological functioning; and to further expose this and related psychotherapies for use in other arenas on the local, state, and international levels in such areas as law enforcement, corrections, education, religion, business, politics, and international relations, with the aim of reducing conflict and inappropriate behavior and improving human relationships.
