Learning supportive psychotherapy: An illustrated guide

We are pleased to present a revised edition of our book, Learning Supportive Psychotherapy, first published in 2004 as Introduction to Supportive Psychotherapy and revised in 2012. One of our authors, Dr. Henry Pinsker, has retired, but we have been fortunate to find an outstanding new coauthor, Dr. Laura Roberts, who brings a wealth of experience and expertise to this new edition.
This book is written for beginning therapists who need to learn the fundamentals of psychotherapy and in particular need to learn how to talk with psychotherapy patients. All practitioners search for effective ways to treat patients. We believe that the beginning resident attempting to practice supportive psychotherapy needs clear guidelines for the conduct and progression of psychotherapy from beginning to end. Accordingly, we have attempted to present straightforward guidelines to help the beginner in four major areas:
• Forming and maintaining a positive therapeutic alliance
• Understanding and formulating patients’ problems
• Setting realistic treatment goals
• Knowing what to say to patients (technique)