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Kutash and Wolf, in this compendium of psychotherapeutics, offer a rich menu from which to consider new ways to build one's theoretical and technical repertory. Here one may be treated not just to a multitude of theories, but to the application of each theory in the form of a case presentation. The format of this book provides the rare opportunity of going beyond an evaluation of theory alone to a consideration of how theory applied affects a particular patient.
The editors have geared their selections to include the wide range of therapies that are practiced today: the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic, the neo-Freudian and non-Freudian analytic therapies, the postanalytic psychotherapies of humanistic psychology, the postanalytic behavioral and directive therapies, the group therapies, and finally, the family system and marital therapies. The authors of each chapter are psychotherapists who have either created or furthered the approaches they delineate. Many of them, such as Harold Blum, James Framo, Stephen Mitchell, Carl Rogers, Clifford Sager, Robert Stolerow, and Lewis Wolberg, are well known. Of special interest to our readership will be the work of Douglas H. Ingram. His chapter, “Horney's Psychoanalytic Technique,” is a highlight of the book.
Ingram presents a masterful description of Horney's theory of technique that is fluent and clear while avoiding the simplistic. What could have been a stereotyped explication of such concepts as “shoulds,” “claims,” and other elements of pathological structure, becomes instead a broad, in-depth exploration of the philosophical underpinnings of Horney theory and their sensitive translation into a technical position. Emphasized are the “unwinding” of vicious circles, and the eliciting of constructive personality forces. Squarely opposed are attempts to actualize such unrealistic idealizations as free association, which ignores the simultaneous impact of resistance, and the final resolution of all neurotic conflict.
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