Comprehensive Casebook of Cognitive Therapy

Abstract

Cognitive Therapy in Practice Comprehensive Casebook of Cognitive Therapy A. Freeman & P.M. Dattilio (Eds.) New York: Plenum Press, 1992. (395 pp.) $65.00 hardcover, $34.50 softcover. It may be true, as Marty Seligman says in the foreword of this casebook, that "this is the golden age of cognitive therapy." Certainly there has been a surge in interest in cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) over the past decade, and both new trainees and experienced practitioners who were initially trained in more traditional approaches to psychotherapy have expressed increasing interest in learning CBT. While there is no shortage of excellent texts on CBT and there are opportunities to attend courses and workshops on CBT with a range of problems, many students of CBT find that principles and techniques which seem fairly simple and straightforward when presented in a text or in a workshop seem much less straightforward when one tries to apply them in practice. Consequently, both practitioners and trainees who are learning CBT frequently ask for explicit examples of how one actually applies CBT in clinical practice. The Comprehensive Casebook of Cognitive Therapy attempts to fill this need for examples of how to "do" cognitive therapy with a wide range of problems. The Casebook consists of two introductory chapters, 34 chapters which each present a detailed example of cognitive therapy with a different disorder, and a final concluding epilogue. The meat of the casebook is in the chapters which focus on the treatment of specific clinical problems. These chapters cover an array of topics ranging from such commonplace subjects as the treatment of depression and anxiety disorders to others in which cognitivebehavioral treatment approaches are much less widely known such as eating disorders, problems of couples and families, schizophrenia, and multiple personality disorder. Each of these chapters provides an overview of the problem being treated and of the available literature, but focuses primarily on a specific case example which illustrates the author's approach to clinical assessment, case conceptualization, treatment planning, and the "nuts and bolts" of therapy. Cognitive-behavioral treatment approaches have the longest history and the strongest empirical base in the treatment of depression and the treatment of anxiety disorders. It is therefore not surprising that nine of the chapters in the Casebook relate to the treatment of depression while six relate to the treatment of anxiety disorders. Cases relating to cognitive therapy of depression include an adjustment disorder, recurrent major depression, dysthymia, suicidality, childhood depression, post-stroke depression, inpatient treatment for depression, and combined cognitive therapy and pharmacotherapy for depression. Chapters regarding anxiety disorders include generalized anxiety disorder, performance anxiety, social phobia, posttraumatic stress disorder, panic disorder with agoraphobia, and anxiety stemming from stress. It might seem that having so many case examples on these two topics would result in considerable redundancy, but this is not the case at all. In fact, these chapters provide a valuable illustration of the range of ways in which the same basic treatment principles are applied in complex clinical situations. …