Review of interpersonal reconstructive therapy: promoting change in nonresponders

Reviews the book, Interpersonal Reconstructive Therapy: Promoting Change in Nonresponders by Lorna Smith Benjamin (see record 2003-02042-000). Lorna Smith Benjamin offers a refreshing and unique treatment approach with this book, for a group of patients who are defined less by a specific diagnosis than by their failure to respond to one or more treatment trials. A master clinician, Benjamin has spent most of her career researching and treating the interpersonal processes of patients with personality disorders and other interpersonal problems. Benjamin is especially impressive when describing the causality of the proposed model and the treatment. Reviews of empirical research are interwoven throughout the middle chapters and are linked smartly to critical treatment issues (e.g., attachment theory, insight, empathy, the therapeutic alliance). Benjamin's own research tool, the Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB), is referred to throughout, but mostly discussed in a single chapter. Those knowledgeable in SASB will immediately recognize it in most of the treatment concepts. Yet those who are not familiar with SASB will have no problem mastering this book, even if they entirely skip the SASB chapter and references. It's hard to imagine many clinicians not advancing their own thinking and practices about working with their most difficult patients by reading this book. Benjamin has advanced the understanding of working with difficult patients to a new level. Regardless of whether this book proves to be superior in clinical trials, Benjamin's unique contribution to thinking about therapy is already a classic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).