Introduction

Although many writers relate the rise of short-term treatment to recent shifts in social and economic conditions, careful readings of the psychoanalytic literature remind us that clinicians have carried out various forms of brief intervention throughout the course of therapeutic practice. Our earliest conceptions of brief psychotherapy were set forth in the psychoanalytic tradition, following the pioneering efforts of Sandor Ferenczi, Otto Rank, Franz Alexander and Thomas French, and the major schools of psychoanalytic thought continue to shape emerging approaches to time-limited therapy.

As the articles in this volume show, the growing emphasis on theoretical pluralism and pragmatism in contemporary psychoanalysis has broadened the base of brief dynamic treatment. Although early approaches emphasized stringent selection criteria and limited the scope of intervention to a narrow range of problems, the realities of contemporary practice have forced clinicians to revise conservative models of short-term dynamic treatment. Practitioners have reconsidered classical notions of the therapeutic endeavor, enlarged their understandings of curative factors, and realized the need to develop more flexible treatment strategies in efforts to serve a greater range of clients with differing levels of functioning, relational capacities, coping strategies, social networks, and environmental conditions. Out of practical necessity, workers are carrying out what D. W. Winnicott would have called experiments in adapting to need (Winnicott, 1962/1965, p. 169).

While many clinicians continue to challenge the growing emphasis