Extended Dynamic Psychotherapy: Making the Case in an Era of Managed Care. 1997 Supplement to Psychoanalytic Inquiry, Joseph Lichtenberg, M.D., Issue Editor: Susan Lazar, M.D.,  Analytic Press, Northvale, NJ, 1997.

In this era of managed care, dynamic psychotherapy, and particularly psychoanalysis, has become devalued and depreciated. The corporate mantra has labeled these treatment interventions as outdated and out of touch with modern, short-term, symptom-reduction-orientated therapies. For practitioners of these therapies, and for anyone else in the field, this text is required reading. Drs. Lichtenberg and Lazar present a comprehensive and thorough review of the literature on the effectiveness and results of outcome research for both psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. This represents the state of the art in outcome research and clearly reinforces the need for extended therapies. The level of scientific scholarship stands in contrast to the pseudo-scientific “literature” that most managed care companies produce. Reading this text will assist all clinicians as they deal with reviewers who attempt to downplay the effectiveness of long-term therapies. The evidence is overwhelming that therapy works but that it takes time. This anthology covers a wide range of topics, but it represents a review of the world literature of outcome research and its clinical application.

The text is divided into three sections. Part I focuses on specific patient populations and the need for psychotherapy, Part II reviews research data, and Part III concentrates on the applicability to managed care.

The first section contains seven articles from authors of national and international prominence. The epidemiology of mental illness is reviewed and specific therapies aimed at specific target populations are reviewed. Gabbard's article entitled “The Borderline Patient and Rational Managed Care Policy” is a classic and should be the basis for any managed care manual on the treatments of patients with this diagnosis. It is important to remember that 23% of all inpatients and 11% of all outpatients suffer from BPD (borderline personality