Time-Limited Psychotherapy

by James F. Mann

Book Overview

Waiting lists in psychiatric clinics and increasing numbers of patients in long-term psychotherapy have highlighted the need for shorter methods of treatment. Existing forms of short-term psychotherapy tend to be vague and uncertain, lacking as they do a clearly formulated rationale and methodology. The bold and challenging technique for brief psychotherapy designed around the factor of time itself, which Dr. Mann introduces here, is a method he hopes...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674891902
• ISBN13: 9780674891906
• Release Date: January 1973
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 202 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Psychotherapy Classic

James Mann is the father of time-limited therapy. He proposes that most of life's difficulties may be reduced to separation anxiety. Life transitions cause distress (i.e., graduation, relocation, loss of a loved one). People can best learn to cope with separation anxiety by making it the central issue in therapy. This is accomplished by limiting the number of therapy sessions to 12. In other words, the client will experience a new separation (life transition)in a therapeutic setting. On a specified day, a final session will occur. The quality relationship that has been developed with the therapist will end. During the intervening sessions, the therapist teaches the client how to address their own needs for meaningful interaction. The final sessions deal with the client's reaction to termination. Accoding to Mann, he most satisfying state is one in which "the person needs others, enjoys others, and prefers others but if deprived of others, can still give them up and find others." Fixing the time limit also brings treatment within a practical period for research by allowing for quantification and better control of treatment variables.