Supportive Therapy. A Psychodynamic Approach: By Lawrence H. Rockland. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1989. 308 pp.

Lawrence H. Rockland has written an important work on an important subject, one significantly neglected in psychoanalytic literature. He addresses psychodynamically oriented supportive psychotherapy, a treatment approach appropriate and helpful to a

significant portion of the population currently seeking psychotherapeutic help. Central to his position is the belief that supportive therapy should not be considered a second class or second choice treatment. It can and should stand on its own merits, with clear indications, technical procedures, and theoretical underpinnings based upon psychoanalytic theory and a psychodynamic understanding of patients for whom it is appropriate. He argues throughout the text, insistently and persuasively, for establishing supportive therapy as separate but equal alongside of exploratory psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and other treatment approaches.

Rockland leans heavily on research support for his advocacy of supportive therapy. He makes frequent reference to the research findings of Wallerstein and the Menninger Group, Luborsky and the Penn Studies, Stanton and the Boston Psychotherapy Study, and other familiar, empirically based investigations of psychotherapeutic efficacy. He argues that supportive therapy needs to be taught in a systematic manner to mental health professionals, that its techniques need to be studied and refined in a variety of clinical settings with different populations, and that it can and should be practiced with enthusiasm, confidence, and expertise alongside its sister treatment modalities.

Rockland's text is divided into three parts. Part One takes up what the author calls the supportive-exploratory continuum. He examines what constitutes a supportive intervention, particularly in relation to establishing general differences in the supportive therapist's handling of transference and resistance. In general, supportive therapy is aimed at strengthening the ego's adaptation to internal and external re