Formulation as a Basis for Planning Psychotherapy Treatment

To help their patients, clinicians must make accurate diagnoses and devise effective treatment plans. These plans often involve psychotherapy with goals that include symptom reduction, the prevention of relapse, and helping patients recognize and remove impediments to more effective functioning.

Formulation as a Basis for Planning Psychotherapy Treatment presents a formulation system that combines concepts derived from psychodynamic, interpersonal, cognitive-behavioral, and family system approaches. In a step-by-step manner, illustrated by plentiful case examples, this useful guide shows psychiatrists, residents in psychiatry and psychology, social workers, and marriage and family counselors how to plan treatment after the initial diagnosis.

After an overview of psychological change processes, each of the five steps in the formulation process are covered systematically. Case formulation is begun by the careful selection and description of a patient's symptoms and problems. This information is then grouped into states of mind, an approach that allows for multiple presentations of a patient, avoids static descriptions of observations, and places many observable features into meaningful clusters of co-occurrence.

Subsequent chapters explain how all of this information can be used to focus the treatment and identify defensive controls that may interfere with treatment. The author describes how to infer deep beliefs about the self in terms of views of relationships with others. The book teaches how to formulate plans for interventions during psychotherapy.

American Psychiatric Publishing

The book contains black-and-white illustrations.

To help their patients, clinicians must make accurate diagnoses and devise effective treatment plans. These plans often involve psychotherapy with goals that include symptom reduction, the prevention of relapse, and helping patients recognize and remove impediments to more effective functioning.

Formulation as a Basis for Planning Psychotherapy Treatment presents a formulation system that combines concepts derived from psychodynamic, interpersonal, cognitive-behavioral, and family system approaches. In a step-by-step manner, illustrated by plentiful case examples, this useful guide shows psychiatrists, residents in psychiatry and psychology, social workers, and marriage and family counselors how to plan treatment after the initial diagnosis.

After an overview of psychological change processes, each of the five steps in the formulation process are covered systematically. Case formulation is begun by the careful selection and description of a patient's symptoms and problems. This information is then grouped into states of mind, an approach that allows for multiple presentations of a patient, avoids static descriptions of observations, and places many observable features into meaningful clusters of co-occurrence.

Subsequent chapters explain how all of this information can be used to focus the treatment and identify defensive controls that may interfere with treatment. The author describes how to infer deep beliefs about the self in terms of views of relationships with others. The book teaches how to formulate plans for interventions during psychotherapy.

Kelly E. Arduino

This book presents a framework for the development of an integrative treatment plan in psychotherapy. Case examples, diagrams, and tables help the beginning psychotherapist visualize and then internalize the process of combing interventions from diverse theoretical orientations. The purpose is to teach beginning psychotherapists how to develop an integrative treatment plan for psychotherapy. This concept is potentially confusing for students who are not familiar with the intricacies of divergent psychological theories; however, there are potential benefits to learning this model early in one's career. Although this book is intended for the beginning counselor, social worker, or psychiatry resident, the experienced psychotherapist would also benefit from reading it. The current climate of managed care, with its strict requirements for treatment planning, necessitates the use of multi-intervention treatment plans to provide focus and credibility to psychotherapy. It is well organized and succinct in its step-by-step presentation of treatment plan formulation. The same diagram is used consistently to illustrate the multi-theoretical intervention model. Case examples and tables, rather than text laden with references, simplify the difficult process of synthesizing theory. This book significantly contributes to the field of psychotherapy. The type of treatment plan described in this book moves the field toward more sophisticated treatment interventions. The author acknowledges the importance of single-theory interventions, but presents a convincing argument about the greater effectiveness of developing an integrative treatment plan. The book walks the practitioner through the processof choosing among cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, interpersonal, and pharmacologic interventions. I recommend that beginning and experienced psychotherapists purchase this book.

Mardi J. Horowitz, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Center on Stress and Personality at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, University of California, San Francisco, California.