Object Relations Brief Therapy: The Therapeutic Relationship in Short-Term Work

Rating:
Summary: One of the better books on brief dynamic therapy
Review: Stadter's book is wonderful, especially in comparison to some of the other books available on brief therapy from psychodynamic perspectives (e.g., Strupp and Binder's "Psychotherapy in a New Key" or Levenson's more recent exposition on TLDP). This book has a good, clear synopsis of object relations theory, compares the approach to other dynamic brief treatments, and provides a very thorough guide for employing object relations theory in time-limited work. The reader is taken step-by-step through the initial, middle, and end phases of the work, and is also given suggestions for conducting very brief (one or two session) therapy. Finally, a discussion of using brief object relations therapy with clients presenting various types of character pathology is included. Overall, this is perhaps the best book available on conducting short-term therapy using a depth-oriented approach.