| Abstract: | Reviews the book, Symptom analysis: A method of brief therapy by M. Gerald Edelstien (see record 1990-97543-000). This book compares different methods of psychotherapy to find their common thread of effectiveness. According to the reviewer, the author has presented a bold, elegantly simple and quite useful theory. After a discussion of various theories about the origin of psychiatric symptoms and showing how the trauma theory may be seen to underlie various seemingly disparate therapeutic approaches, the author goes on to discuss the general values of brief therapy. Symptom Analysis is a bright book that is full of the author's clinical observations and sometimes challenges so-called "conventional wisdom" without having scientific "hard data" to support its suggestions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
