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This book presents a brief dynamic psychotherapy approach that was originally developed in the United Kingdom but is now practiced by therapists from many countries. Jeremy Holmes states in the Foreword that the central figure in this development is David Malan. Malan trained with Michael Balint, a pupil of Ferenczi who moved from Hungary to England before World War Two and founded the Brief Psychotherapy Workshop at the Tavistock Clinic in London. One feature of this approach, which stems from Ferenczi, is the therapist's active attitude. Malan is best known for having synthesized the various focuses of therapy in two triangles, which he took from other authors but combined and used systematically: the Triangle of Conflict, the corners of which are deep emotions (designated as X), which generate anxiety (A), which in turn elicits various defenses (D); and the Triangle of Person, or of Others, the corners of which are T (the current relationship of the patient with the therapist), C (the current relationships with others) and P (relationships with others in the past). In therapy, attention shifts and links are established between the various corners. Malan later met and collaborated with Habib Davanloo, who used video recording in his work and whose challenging attitude and focus on non-verbal bodily communication came from Wilhelm Reich.
Ferruccio Osimo, who co-edited the book with Mark Stein and co-authored the Introduction with him, is also the main contributor to the book with four chapters. Osimo trained with Malan, then had further training with Davanloo in Geneva and with Leigh McCullough at Harvard. He thus synthesizes the various strands that characterize this book. In Table 1 on page 46, Osimo lists certain therapist interventions specific to his own approach, among which are taking care of the real human relationship with the patient and mirroring aspects of the patient. A special intervention of his is the presentation of what he calls the “character holo