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In this volume Lester Luborsky, a highly respected and seasoned researcher, therapist, psychoanalyst, and teacher, succeeds remarkably well in conveying in deceptively simple fashion the core principles of psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy, a definitive description of the technique for carrying it out, a detailed guide to the therapist on the practice of the techniques, and measuring devices to ascertain to what degree the therapist has conformed to the techniques and practice, along with measures and scales for evaluating the outcome. It is the first of its kind. Although there are many books and recommendations on the conduct of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, this manual is the first to meet the strict format requirements of defining as completely as possible recommendations, the main techniques or operations the therapist is to perform, and the scales to measure his performance. The latter is a requirement often neglected. As well, it is a training tool for therapists, supervisors, and teachers. In reducing the complexities of psychoanalytically informed theory and practice to simpler terms, something is lost, much is gained. Luborsky provides the means of validating the efficacy of therapy, something which he himself, along with others, has served to establish. He seeks to articulate a theory of change, to define technique in operational terms so that it can be taught, to provide reliable scales to determine whether treatment has been accurately conducted, and to supply instruments for assessing change.
The present manual is a refinement of previous manuscript versions which Luborsky had been testing out for many years. The core principles of therapy are based on Freud's recommendations for psychoanalytic technique and the development and application of psychoanalytic psychotherapy at the Menninger Foundation, where Lester Luborsky spent 13 years studying classical psychoanalysis and the style of supportive-expressive psychotherapy he describes. W