Am J Psychiatry 1986; 143:1507-1517
Copyright © 1986 by American Psychiatric Association
A review of brief individual psychotherapies
RJ Ursano and RE Hales
The authors review and contrast four brief individual psychodynamic
psychotherapies: focal, anxiety-provoking, time-limited, and broad- focus.
They also summarize the techniques associated with two other brief
individual psychotherapies that rely less on psychodynamic techniques:
interpersonal psychotherapy and cognitive therapy. They find that
differences among the therapies in the timing and type of interventions are
at times more striking than the differences in their goals or identified
problem areas. The authors also discuss educational and cost/benefit issues
associated with the brief psychotherapies and recommend further empirical
studies to determine the most effective brief therapy for selected
psychiatric disorders.
