Long-awaited does not do justice to the celebrations which this comprehensive account of Psychodynamic Interpersonal Therapy (PIT, aka Conversational model) compiled by its master-practitioners will evoke. PIT is a miraculous blend of art (metaphor and the Romantic poets), science (robust outcome-process studies of depression, Medically Unexplained Symptoms, and Borderline Personality Disorder) and existential-Self psychology (from passivity to activity; more secure and reflexive sense of Self). Like PIT itself, the book is highly practical, experience-near, transparent, and well-structured. Concise and indispensable, it will help psychotherapists of all stages and stripes to become better therapists -- perhaps even better people!
-- Prof Jeremy Holmes MD FRCPsych
At a time when many clinicians feel that research is irrelevant, alien and yet imposed onto their work, this book offers a much-needed pathway of rapprochement between practice and science. Expanding upon a treatment manual that has been vetted in several studies for many clinical problems, and resting on rich conceptual foundations, it describes therapeutic skills that are essential to clinicians of all levels of experience. It also provides insightful treatment guidelines, helpful tools, and extensive clinical examples that could only have emerged from the expertise and wisdom of accomplished researchers, practitioners, and trainers. With this book at hand, I cannot think of a clinician who will not learn how to conduct psychodynamic-interpersonal therapy, get better at it, master it, teach it or simply become a more effective therapist.
-- Louis Castonguay, Ph.D.
