Introduction to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Technique

Introduction to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Technique is a revised edition of the popular technical guide to the conduct of psychodynamic psychotherapy written by Sarah Fels Usher, published in 1993. In her thoroughly updated book, the author takes the student from the very beginning through to the end of the processes involved in using psychodynamic psychotherapy as a method of understanding and treating patients.

Introduction to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Technique offers explanations of how psychoanalytic/psychodynamic theory underwrites the technique, and demonstrates how the technique follows from the theory in a clear and accessible style. Each chapter is organized around the psychoanalytic concepts of transference and counter-transference, demonstrating how these concepts bring the work together. New material includes a chapter devoted to working with patients’ defenses, an in-depth look at the emotions on both sides during termination, and a chapter on the experience of supervision, all accompanied by lively clinical examples.

The book is unique in that it is written from the point of view of the student, highlighting the difficulties they may encounter in practice and offering concrete suggestions for technique. Introduction to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Technique will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychiatric residents, graduate psychotherapy students and social work students.

Sarah Fels Usher is a psychoanalyst and psychologist in private practice in Toronto. She is the past President of the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society, the Founding Director of the Fundamental Psychoanalytic Perspectives Program and a faculty member of the Toronto Institute of Psychoanalysis. Dr. Usher is also the book editor of the Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis, and the author of What is This Thing Called Love? A Guide to Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Couples (Routledge, 2008).