The Compleat Therapist

Tackling the questions of why and how diverse psychotherapeutic approaches so often lead to similar helpful results for clients, Kottler ( On Being a Therapist ) attempts a portrait of the "consummate practitioner." An associate professor of counseling at the Citadel, a college in South Carolina, he calls upon his own experience, interviews with other therapists and the field's literature to select what he deems to be the best features from most systems. Citing approaches championed by Freud, Carl Rogers, Milton Erickson and Albert Ellis, among others, he concludes that what matters most is "who the therapist is as a human being . . . ." Addressed to therapists but of interest to clients as well, Kottler's accessible though repetitive examination confirms what many clients and therapists already believe: that healing derives from the therapeutic relationship. "Therapists who are perceived as confident and credible produce positive results." Kottler anticipates the discovery of an integrated theory of therapy that will connect the essence of diverse methodologies, much as Newton's discoveries unified pre-17th century theories of physics.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"Jeffrey Kottler has taken on a daunting challenge to examine the chaotic field of psychotherapy and abstract 'what works.' He makes his survey with wit, humility and clinical sophistication." --James F.T. Bugental, past president, California State Psychological Association

"Addressed to therapists but of interest to clients as well....Kottler anticipates the discovery of an integrated theory of therapy that will connect the essence of diverse methodologies, much as Newton's discoveries unified pre-seventeenth-century theories of physics."