The Goals of Psychotherapy. Edited by Alvin R. Mahrer. New York:  Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967.  301 pp.

The editor invited sixteen psychotherapists (including himself) to state their own goals in psychotherapy, not those of any particular “schools” to which they might adhere. The results are very much like what might be expected in an essay type of examination. Some of the students stick to the assignment. Others talk more or less around the subject. The volume thus presents quite a varied assortment, which the editor tries to disentangle in three chapters of summary, discussion and research implications.

Among the few authors who stick to the subject, Reuben Fine gives the most precise and systematic presentation, in which one can detect the brilliant moves of a former chess Grand Master. Rudolf Dreikurs and, by implication, Lewis Wolberg distinguish between the patient's and the therapist's goal. The former points out that symptom removal may be the patient's but not the therapist's prime purpose of psychotherapy. Wolberg declares the patient to be a poor judge of the severity of his problems and consequently of the success of treatment. He discusses how this discrepancy affects outcome evaluation measures.

It may seem justified to discuss goals in psychotherapy in terms of one's underlying theory of personality. John Rosen, Victor Raimy, Joseph Wolpe, Adrian van Kaam, Albert Ellis, George Kelly and the editor give extended descriptions of their respective theories and relate treatment goals more or less loosely. In so doing Wolpe overgeneralizes in his conclusions from cats to humans, Ellis is as seductively rational as usual and Kelly, whose paper was one of his last before his recent death, scintillates as always. By contrast, Raimy, Gendlin and Bahrer seemed rather obtuse to this reviewer.

Among those contributors who almost completely disregard the topic of goals, Eugene Gendlin declares the therapy process itself to be the goal—a construct very close to that of Kelly; Leon Saul finds the opportunity for a critical summary of Freud's theory of neurosis; and Morris