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Rare indeed are introductory books on psychotherapy that combine a no-nonsense approach with a profound respect for individuality and individual difference, books that conjoin clarity of exposition with attention to the spectrum of theoretical differences and emerge with something resembling a shape. The book under review does this and, equally astounding does so within the compass of 101 pages.
Ghaffari and Caparrotta begin with the observation that “there is very little formal training in assessing patients for suitability for psychological therapy” (p. xi). Within the psychoanalytic fold, of course, much ink has been spilled on the question of analyzability. Many analysts, however, are still at pains to remind us that these criteria apply to analysis only, and are not applicable to psychotherapy, in many respects the dark continent of the analytic world.
This book therefore comes as a most welcome antidote to the dismissive and utilitarian attitude with which assessment has commonly been regarded: as a way station to medication, as a necessary step in triage, as an opportunity for history taking, and, more generally, as a way of clearing one's throat for the “real song” that is to follow. Such a dismissive attitude fails to recognize the human potential in the initial contact between therapist and patient, and the essential importance for treatment that these encounters can have.
Much thought has clearly gone into the organization of this exceptional little book, which follows the process of assessment systematically through various phases clearly delineated. After a general introduction, the authors take up definitions of assessment and of the definition and functions of the assessors, referrals, suitability for psychological therapy, psychodynamic assessment, case formulation and the choice of treatment modality. Along the way the authors make innumerable unpretentious observations that ring clear as a bell. They speak, for example, of the “frequent conflation of