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F.N. Busch, B.L. Milrod, M.B. Singer and A.C. Aronson, Routledge Mental Health, Abingdon, Routledge, 2011, 230 pp., £21.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-0415871600
The manual of panic focused psychodynamic psychotherapy – Extended range (PFPP-XR) is part of a welcome move to develop a systematic approach to the provision of psychodynamic psychotherapies in order to build scientific support for their use. It is the sequel to a manual published in 1997, which presented PFPP as a form of brief psychodynamic psychotherapy for patients presenting with panic or anxiety in order that research into its outcome could be carried out. Lest you find the less-than-snappy title of this manual off-putting, I will say at the outset what an interesting and informative read it is. It provides a clear and concise description of key psychodynamic concepts before launching into an instructive and thoroughly demystifying account of a form of brief psychotherapy, PFPP, amply illustrated with case examples. It is especially valuable as a teaching tool because it gives such a good working sense of a particular form of psychodynamic therapy.
PFPP is described as a brief 24-session form of psychotherapy for patients suffering from panic and anxiety with a focus on the relief of symptoms through gaining an understanding of the role of unconscious motivation and affect in their production. The revised manual clarifies and extends the original PFPP model on the back of 10 years' clinical experience and research, with a new emphasis in the third part of the book on how it can be applied to a wide range of anxiety problems that fit diagnostic criteria in DSM-IV. Evolution of the therapeutic approach is presented as the result of the authors' considerable experience of using it; what is not perhaps as clear as it should be is the way in which research has informed clinical practice over the past decade. Indeed, research into the effectiveness of PFPP is referred to if and when relevant, rather than laid out