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A therapeutic strategy is a plan for treatment. What the authors of this book have aimed at answering is the question, When I have a patient in psychotherapy or in analysis, how do I go about planning the treatment? What advice can you give me on how to proceed?
In analysis as in every other craft there are lots of rules of thumb. What to do with a patient who is very anxious, or with one who is depressed, or who only talks about everyday things, or who never talks about everyday things, or who is silent, or one who talks with every breath. The list is endless and, I may add, the questions themselves are fruitless because the answer to every one is the same. It depends on the patient. Rules of thumb are of little value as guides for what to do in treatment, because no two patients are alike. What applies to one won't apply to the other. To intelligently carry on any treatment you have to understand your patient and the best way to understand a patient, our six authors tell us, is in terms of the structural theory as we know it today; in terms of conflict and compromise formation. Whatever