Short-Term Treatment and Social Work Practice: An Integrative Perspective

The growing need for time-limited treatment, propelled by the widening influence of managed care in the mental health field, has produced a renewed focus on short-term therapy. But, until now, there has not been an integrated framework designed for the short-term intervention problems and diverse populations that social workers encounter.

In Short-Term Treatment and Social Work Practice: An Integrative Perspective, Eda G. Goldstein and Maryellen Noonan take the best of theories that social workers have relied on for decades, including ego psychology, other psychodynamic and psychosocial frameworks, and the cognitive-behavioral approach, to create a new short-term practice model for social workers. Short-Term Treatment and Social Work Practice introduces the authors' integrative short-term treatment (ISTT), and demonstrates in detail each aspect of the approach. Their book is replete with case examples that illustrate ISTT's principles and techniques and their use in a variety of situations -- including crisis intervention, family- and group-oriented therapy, treatment of clients with emotional disorders, and treatment of nonvoluntary and hard-to-reach clients.

As the first social work textbook describing an integrated framework for short-term treatment and practice, Short-Term Treatment and Social Work Practice fills a void the mental health field. Offering a comprehensive, practical, in-depth discussion, this book promises to become a vital new resource for students and practitioners alike.

Eda G. Goldstein, D.S.W., author of Ego Psychology and Social Work Practice and Borderline Disorders: Clinical Models and Techniques, is professor and Director of the Ph.D. program in Clinical Social Work at the New York University Shirley M. Ehrenkranz School of Social Work, where she chaired the social work practice curriculum area for fourteen years. She is currently consulting editor to the Clinical Social Work Journal and the Journal of Analytic Social Work, and served a term as consulting editor to Social Work. She maintains a private practice with individuals and couples in New York City.