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While this book is intended to serve as a guide to time-limited dynamic psychotherapy, I recommend it strongly to anyone who is interested in a clear and succinct blend of psychodynamic theory and clinical know-how.
After a brief overview and critical discussion of the history of short term psychotherapy, the authors get to the central point of their discussion, viz, time-limited dynamic psychotherapy (TLDP).
While dynamic focus may reflect any theoretical orientation, in TLDP, it is lodged within the interpersonal context. More specifically, it should capture “the salient pattern of interpersonal roles in which patients unconsciously cast themselves, the complementary roles in which they cast others, and the maladaptive interaction sequences, self-defeating expectations, and negative self-appraisals that result.” The function of a focus is to help the therapist assemble, sort, organize, and interpret the recurring patterns of interpersonal transactions in the therapy. In short, it is a blueprint for conducting the therapy.
For Strupp and Binder, interpretation remains the major mode of therapeutic encounter. However, they define it more liberally to include any timely and emotionally meaningful intervention. Thus, any affective communication, verbal or nonverbal, that facilitates an understanding of a current interpersonal conflict is thought of as interpretation. Furthermore, interpretation is taken to be a collaborative endeavor; the best interpretations being those