Brief versus Long Psychotherapy: When, Why, and How.

GUSTAFSON, James P.

ISBN 10: 1568214707 / ISBN 13: 9781568214702

Published by Jason Aronson, Northvale, 1995

About this Item

First printing. Fine in a fine dust jacket.

Seller Inventory # 24046

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Brief versus Long Psychotherapy: When, Why, and How.
• Publisher: Jason Aronson, Northvale
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1568214707
• ISBN 13: 9781568214702
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • General Nonfiction III

About this title

Synopsis

How can a patient best be helped? What treatment is most effective for which problem? When is brief therapy sufficient? When is long-term work necessary? Dr. James Gustafson, who has spent over twenty-five years treating people using different modalities - brief, long-term, family, and group approaches - answers these questions in this unique contribution.
Brief Versus Long Psychotherapy first covers the common ground of all psychotherapies: interpersonal problems. Dr. Gustafson shows readers how to distinguish between what he terms benign problems, which improve through the therapist's stance of understanding, and malignant ones, which initially respond with the patient becoming increasingly agitated and demanding. Dr. Gustafson demonstrates how to understand the patient's dynamics and what criteria to use to decide on treatment modality. Here, the author gives concrete examples of his use of field theory to understand and consider with the patient his or her difficulties in social, psychological, and biological contexts.
Rather than promising miracle cures in unrealistically few sessions, Dr. Gustafson accepts the tremendous challenge of improving people's lives. In this volume he helps therapists clearly assess the problems people bring to them in order to provide them with the best possible treatment - and therefore the most efficient one.

About the Author

Dr. James P. Gustafson joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, where he has been a professor for the last twenty-one years.