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This is an insightful, delightfully stimulating, and well-crafted book. It provides us with a modern-day Socratic dialogue in which 27 “Studies” regarding critical points in the technique of dynamic psychotherapy are carried on between, first, the author and a knowledgeable reader, and, second, between the author and a
number of student-therapists. Each of these studies is designed to elucidate some aspects of the craft (i.e., the technique) of psychotherapy.
The structure and the layout of the book are felicitous. Following an initial chapter on the Psychotherapist's Craft, six chapters follow delineating crucial model points in dynamic psychotherapy—The Basic Instruction, Business, Interpretation, Timing, What to Interpret When, and Resistance.
The first chapter, “The Psychotherapist's Craft,” is a masterful presentation of the author's view of psychotherapy. He notes: “This book presents many explicit dialogues between hypothetical patients and their therapists, and digresses often. I will take the liberty of allowing a hypothetical reader to break into the text with questions, challenges and comments” (p. 1). He further notes that his dialogues, which he calls Studies, are designed for the so-called dynamic or traditional school of therapy and that their method is a blend of psychoanalytic and nondirective therapies (p. 3). His definition of therapy is forthright:
I prefer to define therapy in a way that makes no reference to any interaction processes. Instead, I use a two-part definition, where one part takes account of the distinctive behaviors and intentions that describe the therapist, and the other one rests on the concept of the “therapeutic process” which denotes the psychological experience that the therapy affords the patient. (p. 8).
As regards the therapeutic process, he holds that the average-expectable course of therapy will be significantly enhanced when the therapist remains as nondirective and as neutral as possible. His data-sources are extensive: