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The authors describe the treatment of a patient who was suffering from attacks of depression, a feeling of hopelessness, and much weeping; in short, a neurotic depressive reaction. The therapy is stated to have been conducted under the two stars of Freudian psychopathology and reinforcement-learning-theory. The former provided the power and the latter the precision of the procedure. It was a short-term technique, designated by the authors brief psychotherapy, which, according to their definition, is treatment lasting from six to thirty hours.
The authors do more, however, than describe the treatment, as they show exactly how a student psychotherapist was supervised and trained by an experienced teacher and colleague. The title of the book is an apposite one, as indeed the procedure was conducted by steps, the left foot forward being the student therapist's session with the patient, and the right the supervision session. At each such interview a sound recording of all that was said by the patient and student therapist was played over in the presence of student and supervisor. Such supervision, conducted in a precise and tight-reined way, imposes considerable stress upon the student therapist, as it threatens him with criticism which might well paralyze his initiative. In this case, however, the helpful approach of the supervisor and the stability of the student therapist combine to produce steady progress.
Though the technique of free association was used, the therapy was pushed forward by 'labelling', a term used by the authors to describe the providing of words and sentences by the therapist, and the linking of them to the vague but intense, inarticulate feelings of the patient. Psycho-analysis is much more comprehensive than the treatment described, but in such treatment there was the same emphasis upon the study of problems brought forward in the session, in the light of their origins. In other words due importance was given to the present as the re-enactm