Book Review: Psychotherapy Research and Practice: Bridging the Gap

In 1934, in response to papers dealing with a series of experimental studies attempting to verify a number of psycho-analytic propositions sent to him by Dr Saul Rosenzweig, Freud wrote: I cannot put much value on such confirmations because the abundance of reliable observations on which these propositions rest makes them independent of experimental verification. In adopting this somewhat haughty (and to my mind deeply misguided) attitude, Freud's words contain in a nutshell the continuing tensions existing between psychotherapeutic research and practice.

This edited text is among the finest that I have read regarding the potential points of contact and the existing points of division between psychotherapeutic research and practice. Inspired by a series of weekly meetings that took place throughout the middle to late years of the 1980's at Vanderbilt University, the text is divided into two main sections. The first presents the problems and critiques of psychotherapy research as viewed by five psychotherapists. The remaining section consists of a number of papers written by a number of researchers (some of whom are also practicing psychotherapists) who seek to develop various 'working marriages' between practice and research. While I found the first section to be of greater interest, I was intrigued enough by the second to stay with it and found something of worth in each of the research-based articles. Overall, however, I remained most impressed by a paper by Marshall Edelson

entitled 'Can psychotherapy research answer this psychotherapist's questions?' While very personal, and presented in the form of a 'question and answer' session, I found myself engaged, amused and enlightened by it and feel that many practitioners who are either unclear or uncertain as to the possible value of psychotherapeutic research will feel that their concerns have been more than adequately voiced by Edelson. I also want to direct readers of this Journal to a paper by Leston Havens ('Some suggestions for making research more applicable to clinical practice') as they may be enlightened by a description of the clinical practice of Harry Stack Sullivan which makes plain why R D Laing acknowledged a major indebtedness to him.

In the concluding chapter, the text editors write:

In reviewing the chapters of this book we looked for points of agreement among the contributors but found only a few. What stands out with the greatest clarity regarding the present relationship between research and practice is the clinicians' perspective, that research is not significantly informative to the therapeutic enterprise and the researchers' view that clinicians have turned a deaf ear to meaningful empirical findings (Talley et al, 1994: 254).

Yet it must be said that they remain hopeful of a deepening respect between the two camps which might well lead to a partial rapprochement that may prove to be of significant benefit to both research and practice.

While I must warn readers that virtually all of the 'psychotherapeutic practice' is effectively psycho-analytically focused, this should not put them off searching out this book. For any practitioner (regardless of model orientation) who either champions or disdains psychotherapeutic research, or who, perhaps more commonly, is unclear as to its possibilities and limitations, I would recommend this admirably frank and lively book without reservation.

Ernesto Spinelli