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The psychoanalytic professions appear to be under more threat and attack at present than at any other time. With the advent of IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) diminishing resource bases and pressure from government to deliver evidence-based or NICE-approved treatments, it is imperative that the professions rise to the challenge to present evidence of effectiveness in clear and unambiguous ways. The recent meta-analysis of the effectiveness of long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy by Leichsenring and Rabung (2008) showed that long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy was a more effective treatment for complex mental disorders than other shorter forms of psychotherapy. This was a highly significant publication in a prestigious non-psychoanalytic journal and can be used to make the case that there is evidence for the effectiveness of this type of treatment. This new book also helps in the cause for psychoanalytic child psychotherapy, as it brings together a wide range of papers and summaries of research studies undertaken in the field from around the world. However, as Peter Hobson in the preface states: ‘… there are profound scientific challenges in specifying, measuring and making manifest the developmental processes that are at work to influence emotional development, for good or ill’ (p. xv).
There is a tension within the book as to whether this can be achieved without losing what Alvarez and Lee in their chapter called ‘The “Nuance” of the Encounter in the Consulting Room in the Service of Replicable Evidence’. The book seems to be aimed at audiences external to the profession and those within and as such is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the breadth of child psychotherapy outcome and process research as well as helping ‘make the case’ for this type of treatment.
The introductory chapter by the editors addresses comprehensively the challenges of evaluating psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The tyranny of the hierarchy of evidence with RCTs (