Resistance. Psychodynamic and Behavioral Approaches: Edited by Paul L. Wachtel. New York/London: Plenum Press, 1982. 267 pp.

Wachtel, a psychologist whose training was originally in the psychoanalytic tradition, is interested in integrating psychodynamic and behavioral approaches to psychotherapy. This book contains an introduction by him, followed by four chapters describing psychodynamic views, four chapters detailing behavioral ones and eight commentaries by the individual writers on the other contributors' approaches.

Not only do the contributors differ in their methods, but, as might be expected, they differ as well in their definition of resistance. The definitions vary not only between the two groups of psychodynamic and behavioral therapists but also among the members of each group. As each writer deals with his version of "resistance," he also describes his therapeutic approach—especially with "difficult" patients. The volume is replete with clinical vignettes, which makes it particularly useful in providing an understanding of the various authors' thinking and methodology.

Wachtel's "Introduction: Resistance and the Process of Therapeutic Change" is a thoughtful essay which describes the editor's interest in effecting a psychodynamic-behavioral synthesis. He notes that when he first became interested in behavioral approaches, he found that the concept of resistance was alien. Behavioral therapists were to make an appropriate intervention, and if the patient did not use it, it was not the therapist's responsibility. Today, when a patient does not follow a recommendation, the therapist is more likely to feel that his behavioral analysis was not adequate. Although this is an improvement over blaming the patient, it is far from sufficient. Wachtel comments that few behavioral therapists have made much use of psychoanalytic thinking in understanding why the patient does not follow the prescription that has been offered.

When he planned the volume, Wachtel hoped that it "would contribute—from both sides—to a spirit of détente and the recognition that psychodynamic and behaviora