The Practice Of Supportive Psychotherapy

First published in 1989. This volume reflects the extensive experience of a clinician-educator in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Dr. Werman presents a balanced, comprehensive, detailed, nondoctrinaire, and warm human treatment of the subject. He makes it clear that, while supportive psychotherapy can and should be based on psychodynamic understanding of patients, the technical principles that guide application of such understanding in supportive treatment are quite different from those guiding insight oriented therapy. Careful reflection upon the text and its many clinical examples will suggest that good supportive psychotherapy is extremely difficult and demanding of special skills.

David S. Weman Professor of Psychiatry Duke University Medical Center