Transference in Brief Psychotherapy. An Approach to the Study of the Psychoanalytic Process: By Stanley Grand, Ph.D., Joseph Rechetnick, Ph.D., Dinko Podrug, M.D., and Elaine Schwager, Ph.D. Hillsdale, N.J.: The Analytical Press, 1985. 146 pp.

The aim of this slim volume is to develop a sense of conviction that psychoanalytically informed brief psychotherapy can be meaningfully

employed as an analogue for the study of psychoanalysis. Specifically, the contention is that "a time limited psychoanalytic psychotherapy organized around a neutral therapeutic stance could serve as a model for studying the emergence, development and working through of the transference neurosis" (p. 30). It is the first publication of a research project attempting to forge new methods for making psychoanalytic processes more accessible for study.

The book begins with three chapters dealing with brief psychotherapy in general, the management and analysis of transference in brief psychotherapy, and the research strategy. The authors argue that if a transference paradigm can be shown to develop in the course of brief psychotherapy conducted in a technically neutral manner, it might be possible to employ brief psychotherapy for the study of the psychoanalytic process, especially the transference. They use the single case study method to explore this hypothesis and present extensive data from multiple perspectives (an overall case report, a session-by-session analysis, and psychological testing) on a single case. This takes up about two-thirds of the book. The authors feel that the presentation of extensive clinical data is necessary to develop a sense of conviction and to permit readers to draw their own conclusions. The remaining two chapters of the book are devoted to a discussion of technical neutrality and its consequences for brief psychotherapy, the reasons they feel their aim has been achieved, and comments on future research directions.

The crux of the argument is that if a methodological correspondence can be shown between brief psychotherapy "conducted according to classical lines" (?) and psychoanalysis, and if it can be shown that comparable processes emerge, then brief therapy can be used as a laboratory analogue f