Brief Psychotherapy: A Reappraisal of Some Theoretical Assumptions

Community psychiatry puts a new premium on efficiency in psychotherapy. Unless effective brief methods based on psychodynamic principles are developed, the practical application of the theoretical advances of the last half century may be jeopardized by consequences of the increasing public demand for psychotherapeutic care. Extending the Johnson-Szurek hypothesis on the role of expectation to include the ego as well as the superego and the therapist as well as the parent may provide a theoretical background for a more optimistic and briefer psychotherapy that retains a psychoanalytic orientation.