The Therapist Is the Therapy: Effective Psychotherapy II

This 1997 book by a highly expereinced psychotherapist/psychiatrist describes in detail the approach to helping unhappy people through applying the concepts and methods of Hellmith Kaiser, Ph.D., who did not achieve much fame or popularity in his lifetime (1894-1961) but did have some influence on a small number of therapists in Connecticut and California. Kaiser had originally been a psychoanalyst, trained in the Berlin, Germany Insititute of Psychoanalysis, but gradually evolved his own approach for effective psychotherapy, which took issue with most of Freud's basic concepts. As Dr. Fierman explains, Kaiser's approach can be called "communicative intimacy." As someone who was in therapy during my psychiatric residency in the early 1950s with Dr. Kaiser and also when Kaiser settled for awhile in Connecticut, I can vouch for the value and efficacy of Kaiser and Fierman's approach. Kaiser was a therapist who definitely developed an approach that Fierman calls "Effective Psychotherapy." Fierman's book is an elaboration of his 1965 book, "Effective Psychotherapy: The contributions of Hellmuth Kaiser." The subtitle makes reference to Fierman's edited book of 1965 by calling it Effective Psychotherqpay II.