Describes the use of bibliotherapy by Eva Renate Stoltzenberg, librarian at the Central Hospital in Bremen-Ost in the Federal Republic of Germany. (DD)

Examined expectations of psychotherapists (N=68) using specific response modes to short written transcripts of therapy sessions under conditions of either high or low self-awareness. Analyses showed no difference between high and low self-awareness group and no significant relationships between self-rating of subjects and ratings of peers, or any…

Presents account of setting up and running an Action Group with adolescents in outpatient setting. Contrasts ideas and aims underlying Action Groups with those of Social Skills Training. Illustrates how therapeutic philosophy helps to define group's boundaries, procedures, and purpose. Describes typical group session. (Author/NB)

Examined whether preparation decreases state anxiety and improves therapy outcome. One-half of 138 psychotherapy outpatients viewed preparatory videotape, whereas controls waited equivalent period before first appointment. Prepared clients had more accurate expectations about psychotherapy and lower state anxiety than did controls. At 2-month…

Examined therapist competence and patient-therapist complementarity as to their interrelation and their unique, collective, and interactive contributions to patient change in 20 sessions of short-term anxiety-provoking psychotherapy. Found that competence in early sessions did not relate to patient change. Patient-therapist complementarity ratings…

Responds to previous article by Gelso and Carter (this issue) on components of psychotherapy relationship: working alliance, transference configuration, and real relationship. Considers difficulty in discriminating between transference and real relationship, both at conceptual and measurement levels. Also sees concept of real relationship as vague…

Traces the history of psychological therapies, including behavior therapy and humanistic therapies that challenged the initially dominant psychoanalytic model. Examines the development of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy and the British Confederation of Psychotherapists, as well as other developments, such as psychotherapeutic studies…

Describes a poetry group developed for older adults with functional mental health problems, based at a day hospital in the United Kingdom. Evaluates the group's effectiveness using both quantitative pre and post measures and qualitative feedback. Finds that all group members enjoyed the group, and that its benefits seemed to lie on a continuum…

This paper reports how consultative work with teachers can be supported by the use of letters. Letters were written by an educational psychologist (EP) after a consultation meeting with a teacher. Features of therapeutic letter writing and solution-focused brief therapy were used to increase the collaborative intent of the letters. Follow-up…

Addresses difficulties in conducting psychotherapy with inpatient adolescents and describes how the idea of working closely with adolescents positively and realistically enables adolescent workers to meet the challenges of residential work. Offers a perspective on the adolescent worker's ongoing therapeutic relationship with inpatient adolescents.…

Presents the results of six years of clinical research on families (N=114) with psychotic children. Suggests the child's psychotic breakdown is the endpoint of a six-stage process which begins with the child's intervention in the parent's "stalemated" interaction. (Author/ABB)

Discusses several strengths and weaknesses of the behavioral approach in psychotherapy. Possible remediation of some of the weaknesses are explored through integration of contributions from client-centered or psychodynamic approaches. Risks associated with an integrated model of psychotherapy are considered. (Author)

Uses metaphor of the wedding in an arranged marriage to describe the process of using a network meeting to overcome resistance and engage a hostile adolescent and her family in a residential treatment program. Review of the literature is followed by description of a clinical case. Practical and theoretical issues are discussed. (Author/NB)

Forty clients received eight psychodynamic treatment (exploratory) sessions and eight cognitive/behavioral treatment (prescriptive) sessions in crossover design. Counselors and external raters rated exploratory sessions as deeper and more powerful; counselors, external raters, and clients rated prescriptive sessions as smoother and easier.…