Gloria-Fifty Years On: Three Approaches to Psychotherapy with a Male Client-The Next Generation, Hosted by Jon Carlson, PsyD, EdD; and Gary R. VandenBos, PhD, with Judith S. Beck, PhD, Leslie Greenberg, PhD, Nancy McWilliams, PhD. Washington, DC:  American Psychological Association. ISBN 13: 978-1-4338-1030-5 Three Approaches to Psychotherapy With a Female Client-The Next Generation by Hosted by Jon Carlson, PsyD, EdD; and Gary R. VandenBos, PhD, with Judith S. Beck, PhD, Leslie Greenberg, PhD, Nancy McWilliams, PhD. Washington, DC:  American Psychological Association ISBN 13: 978-1-4338-1029-9.

Most of us who trained in the '70s and '80s eagerly viewed the “Gloria films,” identifying with the approaches of one or the other of the three famous therapists that interviewed a young woman, Gloria, who volunteered for the groundbreaking project. It promised to open a window into the secret world of the consulting room and allowed us to vicariously experience what it was like to be a therapist (or a patient). The three therapists selected to interview Gloria were at the top of their game, with Carl Rogers arguably the most famous and both Fritz Perls and Albert Ellis in the course of developing a strong following, amounting almost to cult status at times. I never had personal contact with any of these famous men, although my cousin, a Jesuit theologian, once recounted an unsolicited conversation with Ellis while the two happened to be traveling on the same train. Ellis evidently harangued my cousin throughout the journey, attempting to disabuse him of his irrational religious convictions.

… viewers [are] encouraged to look for similarities and differences among the therapists rather than succumb to the urge to turn viewing into a “horse race” top proclaim a winner

One limitation to the films was the absence of a psychoanalytic approach to psychotherapy. Although all three therapists had started out their careers more or less influenced by psychoanalysis (Perls was analyzed by Wilhelm Reich; Ellis was analyzed by Charles Hulbeck, an analysand of Hermann Rorschach; Rogers, although never analyzed, credited Otto Rank as the inspiration for his “here and now” approach to treatment). As a result, we were exposed to clinicians who had developed their distinctive alternatives to psychodynamic treatment: Rogers's “person-centered” approach, Perls's Gestalt Therapy, and Ellis's Rational Therapy (as he termed it at the time, morphing finally into Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy). I assume most readers of this review are quite familiar with Ellis and Rogers; but Perls has f