This book is principally designed for the psychiatrist or clinical psychologist in training who is searching for a straightforward framework for short-term psychotherapy. It will also be of value to psychotherapists who are trained in longer-term therapy. Mental health professionals whose work involves supportive psychotherapy should also find this book useful in extending and developing their skills.

Practical psychotherapy, the subject of this book, is a brief psychotherapy which is designed to be easily integrated with other mental health practices. No specific therapeutic approach, or modality, is espoused although the reader may find elements of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (Beck et al., 1979; Luborsky, 1984; Strupp & Binder, 1984), existential therapy (Deurzen, 1979), strategic and systems approaches (Haley, 1963), clientcentered counselling (Egan, 1990), problem-solving methods, and others.

Practical psychotherapy is therefore an eclectic therapy. This does not mean that it permits a free choice of whichever method happens to appeal to the therapist but that treatment ‘is empirically based and client-driven (rather than theory-guided)’ (Novalis, Rojcewicz & Peele, 1993). Practical psychotherapy is, like other eclectic therapies, rooted in evidence-based practice and thus changes as new evidence comes forward. The practical psychotherapist selects from ‘a repertory of proven techniques without theoretical basis’ and may ‘change techniques as the therapy proceeds, based on observations of what is effective …’ (ibid.).