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This volume continues the admirable struggle to develop systematic techniques for research on psychotherapy on which Horowitz and his group are engaged. The present study attempts to find particular relationships between personality styles and the technique required to treat psychopathology in the context of such personality styles in brief psychotherapy.
The personality styles dealt with are labeled hysterical, more severe hysterical, obsessional, narcissistic, and borderline. The brief therapy is prelimited to 12 sessions. As a continuation of the group's development of brief psychotherapy to deal with a specific recent stress, all patients were suffering from an unsuccessful attempt to deal with the relatively recent loss of a parent. Where the book succeeds is in its careful delineation of a systematic way of describing a case as it presents, as the therapy proceeds, and in terms of outcome. The method involves a phenomenological description, then a delineation of states of mind, role relationships, and information processing. States of mind refers to relatively discrete recurrent psychic positions, role relationships to self and object relations, and information processing to major themes and styles of dealing with conflict. These three dimensions are successively examined at initial presentation, during several stages of therapy, and at outcome. The three areas of data examination have been described in greater detail in the earlier books by Horowitz and his colleagues. The case presentations are detailed, often hour by hour, clear, thoughtful, sophisticated, and include verbatim extracts. The sessions were video- and audio-taped. As the authors correctly say, the descriptions might well serve as a model for the presentation of longer psychotherapies and even psychoanalysis.
Where the book fails in its avowed intention is in demonstrating a significant particularity in the techniques required by the allegedly different personality styles. If there is