The Arts, Crafts, and Sciences of Psychotherapy.

Contemporary training and practice of psychotherapy and the research that supports it is the subject of this review. I discuss it in the light of what I value most from my own professional training, which was, in my opinion, highly privileged by comparison with what is offered today. A minimal hoped-for outcome is that younger readers will find valuable tidbits here and there that will be useful in their own versions of psychotherapy.

Tailoring common treatment principles to fit individual personalities.

The American Psychological Association Task Force headed by Castonguay and Beutler (2006) distilled general treatment principles common to all therapies from the empirical literature. As part of this work, Critchifield and Benjamin (2006a, 2006b) summarized principles for treatment of personality disorder. The principles are pragmatic in the sense that they are based on evidence of what works, and clinicians are encouraged to apply them in ways that fit the unique presentation and needs of a given patient.