Rabkin's book undertakes to educate mental health workers in a variety of treatment strategies designed to provide brief and symptomatic treatment for a wide range of mental disorders found in clinic and private practice. Rabkin finds that traditional long-term therapy is neither an efficient nor desirable method for dealing with the vast majority of mental health problems. His book outlines the assumptions and practices of his approach. He describes the patient's role in therapy, deals with the problem of the compliant patient, and details the “healing fictions” of the therapist's role.

Hypnosis, relaxation techniques, reverse psychology, symptom substitution and small group or family therapy are discussed at length.