How Talking Cures

Lee Jaffe is a training and supervising psychoanalyst at the San Diego Psychoanalytic Center. He is also clinical psychologist as well as professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego. He maintains a private practice for the treatment of children, adolescents, adults, and couples.

• Preface1. Introduction 2. Six Generic Modes of Therapeutic Action 3. Diagnosis and Therapeutic Action 4. Individual Clinical Treatment Illustration5. The Treatment of Couples6. Deconstructing Analytic Concepts of CureConclusionReferencesIndexAbout the Author

Jaffe offers a brief but brilliant account of the ways in which the elements of Freudian therapeutic action play out in both individual and couples therapy. Jaffe identifies six generic modes of therapeutic action in the writings of Freud: direct support, introjection, catharsis, insight, identification, and working through. These six modes account for the change process in psychoanalysis, and some combination of them accounts for the mutative process in most psychotherapies, including the popular cognitive-behavioral therapy. The brevity of this account of psychotherapeutic action—the book comprises six chapters (one an introduction) plus a preface and a conclusion—makes it eminently suitable for teaching mental health professionals, whether psychoanalytically inclined or not. Students of psychology, psychoanalysis, and social work will find this an indispensable introduction to diagnosis and treatment. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates throufh faculty and professionals; general readers.