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This book is well worth your attention. It is solid, validates many of our beliefs and approaches, and teaches new modifications. David H. Malan, an English psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, has been interested in the developments of various short-term psychotherapeutic methods and their long-term outcomes. His textbook, Individual Psychotherapy and the Science of Psychodynamics, has been widely acclaimed. He was one of the first to recognize the significance of the work of Habid Davanloo, who, twenty-five years ago, developed a unique form of intense short-term dynamic psychotherapy, which claimed to cure many neurotic patients in 15 to 40 or more sessions, freeing them of symptoms and the underlying neuroses. This book is a clinical study, devised by Dr. Malan to validate Davanloo's claims. He collaborated with a therapist, Dr. Coughlin Della Selva, who, trained by Davanloo, has taught, practiced, and written about Davanloo's methods. This book presents and discusses the therapy of seven patients who were treated by Coughlin Della Selva in weekly sessions. These sessions were videotaped. Outcome evaluations were made approximately after one year, two years, and ten years.
Such miraculous claims tend to invite suspicion rather than curiosity. Be assured this book is written in a scholarly, sophisticated manner. The cases are impressive and convince that the method was effective in these seven cases. Even if we accept no more than that, it proves that it can happen and deserves our attention. The title claims this is a revolutionary method. None of the premises are new. They are based on Freud's second theory of anxiety, which saw anxiety as a warning signal to the ego, alerting it to the arousal of unwanted feelings that the person believes might threaten the bond to the primary care givers. Defenses are erected that keep the feelings under wrap. These defenses, however, alienate us from ourselves and from others, apart from causing symptoms and affecting our behavior