The Experience of Psychotherapy: A practitioner's Manual. Herbert S. Strean. Metuchen, N.J.:  Scarecrow Press, 1973.  170 pp.

This book fulfills the promise set forth in its title: it is indeed a highly instructive manual for the practice of the corrective emotional experience in psychotherapy and one that should prove to be a valuable guide and reference for the beginning practitioner. The book also achieves the feat of distilling significant theoretical material in the sectors of developmental norms and the factors which impinge upon the emerging personality.

There is a threefold emphasis on (a) the normative emotional growth sequence in the maturing child; (b) the psychosexual and psychosocial dysfunctions which occur at specific developmental stages and are recapitulated in adulthood and (c) treatment vignettes illustrating various interventions designed to resolve resistances and to promote maturation. These formulations are firmly based on Freudian psychology, supplemented by Erikson's concepts of the maturational tasks to be achieved at the various life stages. The therapeutic techniques espoused by the author reflect the innovative contributions of Hyman Spotnitz and Marie C. Nelson.