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In this book the author aims to answer long-standing crucial questions concerning short-term, dynamically oriented psychotherapy. Although dynamic psychotherapy is generally recognized to be effective, in all treatment methods the extent of its effectiveness is an unanswered question. In short-term, dynamically oriented therapy, different therapists employ different theoretical concepts and modes of operations, and therapists seeking an effective short-term treatment method are bound to be confused when confronted by the various concepts espoused by experts in the field. Wolberg has undertaken the enormous task of resolving this and related problems. First, he has discriminatively selected common elements in the chief models currently used and integrated them with his own concepts to formulate a unified model for short-term dynamic therapy. Second, he has evolved a set of 20 principles of operative techniques that can be employed by all psychotherapists irrespective of their theoretical views and styles of operation.
The main body of the book deals with application of the technical principles to the eclectic model for conducting short-term dynamic therapy. Detailed descriptions and vivid clinical illustrations demonstrate how the short-term dynamic therapeutic method effectively influences symptom pictures as well as their underlying mechanisms in those patients who meet the criteria for short-term therapy.
In applying the short-term treatment model, concentration of focus is aimed at three main goals for all patients: symptom relief, cognitive insight into the relationship between the symptoms and their current influencing situations, and insights into how these situations have their origins in developmental vicissitudes that set into motion the dynamic mechanisms upon which the symptoms evolved. Well-conducted therapy enables the patient to continue dynamic exploration of residual conflicts; very often personality changes are effected during treatment and the proces