Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Clinical Manual. By Deborah L. Cabaniss (first author) and Sabrina Cherry, Carolyn J. Douglas, and Anna R. Schwartz (contributing authors). Hoboken, NJ:  Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.  379 pp.

This splendid book by Deborah Cabaniss and her colleagues vividly and eloquently describes and explains expert psychotherapeutic technique, as well as demonstrating exemplary teaching skills. For example, it uses a variety of approaches to actively engage the reader, which enhances learning. It is written in the second person, addressing the reader as “you.” Frequent exercises invite the reader to peruse some clinical material, then arrive at formulations and interventions before seeing the authors' own comments.

The authors deliberately avoid the various theoretical schools of psychoanalysis, and instead approach psychotherapy in what they call “the most ecumenical way possible” (p. xiii). The book compensates for its relative brevity by offering rich lists of references and recommended reading. Cabaniss and her colleagues have extensive experience teaching psychotherapy to psychiatric residents at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. In addition, Cabaniss has an impressive track record of research and publication in the psychoanalytic literature.

I read the book with its target audience of trainees in mind. Yet I found that my own clinical work could benefit from the book's lucid exploration of the essentials of insight-oriented psychotherapy. I especially enjoyed its generous use of clinical gems. The authors are unusually gifted in constructing brief clinical exchanges that are informative, self-contained, and convincingly true to life. They have mastered the art of narrative—in their book in general, and especially in these vignettes. The quality of their writing is so superb that I will quote from it liberally. I believe many trainees will be inspired by the book to pursue further training in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis (as do a significant proportion of the authors' trainees).

The first chapter defines psychodynamic. It memorably describes the mind as “roiling with perpetually moving energized elements. These unconscious elements could e