In recent years there has been an escalating interest in and demand for time-limited therapeutic interventions. Short-Term Psychotherapy demonstrates how Freud's wish for psychodynamically informed therapy to become a therapy for the people can be realised in short-term dynamic interventions.

Alex Coren provides a comprehensive account of the history and contemporary relevance of time-limited psychodynamic therapy. He examines its current position and reviews the time-limited approaches of other therapeutic traditions. Drawing on this work and using attachment theory, the narrative tradition and the concept of a person's private and personal idiom, he presents a practical and approachable model of short-term therapy that develops current psychoanalytic thinking and practice. Through vivid clinical material he addresses important issues relating to practice including:
· assessment and client suitability for short-term work
· differences in therapeutic techniques between time-limited and open ended approaches
· therapeutic outcome
· supervision and training
· working in different clinical settings

'This book breaks new ground in the development of theory and practice of short-term psychodynamic therapy...it has something to offer all trainee and practising counsellors and therapists in a variety of contexts. It conveys complex concepts in a fluent and readable style and the theory is enriched and enlivened by practical applications to clients, with whom the experience of many practitioners will resonate.' - Sue Wheeler, Course Director: Counselling, PACE, University of Birmingham

'Subtle and incisive in its claims for short-term psychotherapy this book reveals just how misleading it has been to privilege the long-term therapies. It is very rare for books in this field to be at once thoroughly informative and able to evoke both the point of therapy and the spirit in which it might be done'
Adam Phillips, Child Psychotherapist

'Short-Term Psychotherapy will become the classic text on brief therapy for students regardless of theoretical orientation. The experienced practitioner will also enjoy it and purchasers of psychotherapeutic services will find it both accessible and informative.' - Craig McDevitt, Chair of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy

Introduction
The History of Short-Term Therapy in the Development of Psychoanalysis
Shorter-Term Psychodynamic Therapies
Application of Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice in Contemporary Time Limited Therapies
Eclectic Time Limited Therapies
Idiom, the Therapeutic Triangle and Transference
Narrative and Attachment Theory in Time Limited Therapy
Assessment for Time Limited Therapy
Differences in Therapeutic Technique between Open Ended and Time Limited Therapies
Therapeutic Outcome and the Effect of Managed Care on Time Limited Therapy and its Practitioners
Training and Supervision
Time Limited Therapy in Different Contexts
Concluding Remarks
Bibliography
Index

ALEX COREN is Director of Psychodynamic Studies at the University of Oxford. He has extensive experience of working as a psychodynamic therapist in a variety of settings and has taught widely, most recently in the field of time-limited therapies. His previous publications include A Psychodynamic Approach to Education (1997).