The Symptom-Context Method

by Lester Luborsky

From a leading pioneer in short-term psychotherapy and psychotherapy research comes this innovative examination of a long-neglected topic - symptom formation in the context of clinical practice. Symptoms, psychological and psychosomatic, are what motivate many patients to come to treatment, yet this is the first and only collection and analysis of recurrent symptoms in psychotherapy; it leads to a new theory of the necessary conditions for symptom formation. Those who have examined symptom conditions have typically done so retrospectively through patient recall, or, less frequently, through behavioral recordings made by the patient near the time the symptom occurs. Both of these methods make interpretations of symptom onset conditions questionable because of the problem of memory distortion and subjectivity. In this volume, Dr. Luborsky describes the symptom-context method of gathering data as symptoms arise in vivo in the psychotherapy session. Transcripts of sessions are examined in