In this useful and timely book, Gustafson shows how the therapist can borrow from the entire tradition of psychotherapy for productive short-term treatment. He explains how to conserve the virtues of earlier stances; describes how to handle the opening, middle, and ending phases in brief therapy; and clarifies the difficulties in short-term work, particularly the tendency of therapist to leave themselves out of the equation. Gustafson's 'method of methods' described here provides psychotherapist with an effective way of engaging patients in brief, successful work.

The last two decades have seen unprecedented increases in health care costs and, at the same time, encouraging progress in psychotherapy research. On the one hand, accountability, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency have now become commonplace terms for providers of mental health services whereas, on the other hand, an increasingly voluminous literature has emerged supporting the effectiveness of a number of types of psychotherapies. There now exists the possibility for the design and delivery of mental health services that-drawing upon this literature-more closely approximate empirically established data concerning the appropriateness and effectiveness of psychotherapy. The Handbook of the Brief Psychotherapies is intended to capture one major thrust of this movement: the development of a group of empirically grounded, time-limited therapies all sharing a common interest in the clinical utilization of a structured focus and an emphasis on time and action. For many years, professional self-interest, competing theoretical para digms, and the vagaries of practice, wisdom, and clinical myth have influenced the practice of psychotherapy. A critical questioning of the resulting, predomi nantly nondirective, open-ended, and global therapies has led to a growing emphasis on action-oriented, problem-focused, time-limited therapies. Yet, ironically, this interest in the brief psychotherapies has not so much involved a radical departure from traditional therapeutic modalities as it has emphasized a new pragmatism about how time, action, and structure operate in life as well as in therapy.

Object Relations Brief Therapy combines practical techniques with the depth of object relations theory, the wisdom of previous brief therapy writers, and, most notably, an emphasis on the unique therapeutic relationship. Often, therapists despair of doing any meaningful work in brief therapy. To this, Michael Stadter suggests the following pragmatic approach, 'think dynamically, address some underlying issue(s) and do what you can.' Specifically, the book emphasizes the depth of understanding of human experience that comes from an object relations perspective; the insight and experiential vitality of attention to the therapeutic relationship including its real, transferential, and countertransferential elements; the impact of the psychodynamic techniques that have been carefully studied and delineated by brief therapy writers such as Davanloo, Horowitz, Malan, Strupp, and Binder; and the flexibility of an eclectic approach that thoughtfully and selectively incorporates non-psychodynamic interventions. Therapists do not have to 'escape' managed care, according to Stadter. Rather, they need to learn how to deal with it in a way that preserves their integrity and enables them to practice the kind of healing psychotherapy they know how to do. In today's health care climate, Object Relations Brief Therapy is a much-needed guide for committed therapists. This new paperback edition includes a preface reviewing more recent developments in the area of brief therapy.

In this book, the author succeeds in showing short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy to be an authentic and accepted method of therapy. She roots the concept in tradition and also introduces the reader to the relevant contemporary literature. In examining several cases in detail she draws out the key principles involved to present these in a clear and concise manner and demonstrates aspects of the method in practice. This book is both an excellent introduction and in depth exposition so it is highly relevant to the experienced practitioner or student. It will appeal to people both lay and professional who have an interest in an approach to therapy that is condensed but not diluted.'This book concentrates on short term psychodynamic psychotherapy. It aims to discover and analyse the key principles involved. It also aims to enrich the understanding of an approach to therapy that is already of benefit to many in our community, but that could reach very many others if it were better known and understood.'- From the Introduction.

Following the publication of the Handbook of the Brief Psychotherapies (Wells & Giannetti, 1990), the editors began to conceptualize the idea of a collection of case studies encompassing a number of the commonly en countered clinical problems that have been treated with such ap proaches. The Casebook of the Brief Psychotherapies is the result. The Case book details clinical interventions with client populations as diverse as substance abusers, torture victims, the physically handicapped and other exceptional groups, and the economically disadvantaged with emotional and behavioral problems, as well as individuals experiencing sexual dysfunction or eating disorders. In addition, topics such as be reavement, depression, anger, and many crucial aspects of marital and family therapy are discussed by eminent clinical practitioners. Although the cases draw heavily upon cognitive behavioral and strategic structural formulations, psychodynamic, interpersonal, and experiential ap proaches are also included. The Casebook is clinically oriented, with a minimum of theory. Am ple case material and commentary allow the reader to experience direct ly the application of brief therapy to specific client problems. What emerges from this compendium of approaches and problems is a tap estry of action-oriented, problem-solving, skill-building, rational ap proaches to therapy that balance the client's ability to change with the demands and limits of time.

As the fields of psychiatry and clinical psychology are increasingly driven by the economics of the HMO or Mental Health Center, practitioners in any setting, whether it be private practice or university clinic, are now forced to develop more concrete procedures and models in order to practice more efficiently. This book presents a set of procedures for brief therapy that are based entirely on the four common dynamics of psychiatry. By following the model set forth in this book, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses, and mental health workers will be able to build an entire brief therapy program based upon the initial conditions for each patient. In Very Brief Psychotherapy, Dr. James Gustafson provides the reader with the tools and techniques to make a discernable difference in a patient's life in only a few moments. The majority of people seeking help from mental health professionals are not pathological, but are most often stuck in self-imposed cyclical patterns of behavior from which they cannot escape. It is the first step in any situation that leads to the iteration of the familiar circle, and it is in this single step that the clinician can effect decisive change. Given a window of only five or ten minutes, the practitioner armed with this approach can help a patient break out of the repeating pattern, move around the impasse, and take the first step onto a new trajectory. Very Brief Psychotherapy can help the practitioner make meaningful interventions in real world time, and in less than ideal circumstances, will radically change the reader's concepts of what can be accomplished in a day, in a clinical hour, or even in a single moment.

In this well-illustrated text, the author explores the potential of brief psychotherapy through four paradigmatic modes of the patient's relationship to others: subservience, indecisiveness, control, and fundamental fault. Dr. Gustafson utilizes cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, and systems approaches to show clinical psychology practitioners and students how to decipher and respond to the narratives of patients' lives.