Publisher's Synopsis
This text explores discoveries about an important process in psychotherapy: the client's development of mastery over symptoms, conflicts and problems. The author defines mastery as an ingredient common to all forms of therapy that helps clients develop both self-understanding and self-control. He demonstrates how the process of mastery works and how it can significantly reduce clients' symptoms and help them respond to emotional conflicts with greater flexibility.;In this study, the development of mastery is meaningfully related to changes in the therapeutic alliance, transference, and close interpersonal relationships. The author promotes an approach to clinical work that aims to be informed and responsive to research findings irrespective of the specific form of therapy conducted by the clinician. He attempts to apply a new methodology to studying the psychotherapeutic process using verbatim transcripts as the evidential base. The results contribute to an understanding of what makes psychotherapy effective and how this knowledge can help the practising clinician.
