The prescription of psychotherapy.

This paper outlines a format for the evaluation of patients for whom intensive dynamic psychotherapy is being considered as a treatment modality. Such an evaluation includes a traditional descriptive diagnostic assessment leading to the establishment of a conventional nosological diagnosis. This is followed by a descriptive, developmental evaluation which pays close attention to the levels of ego development, at the same time attempting to assess the mutual influences between it and several other important lines of development which may not all have reached similar phases of maturation. The assessment is completed by the psychodynamic evaluation of the patient and a table is presented outlining a series of contrasting clinical findings which either favour the use of intensive, uncovering psychotherapy or mitigate against it. It is proposed that these factors, when taken into account with the degree and the duration of the presenting problems, provide useful guidelines for the prescription not only of intensive psychodynamic psychotherapy, but also of a whole variety of psychotherapeutic approaches. A second table illustrates how this integration assists in the prescription of the appropriate psychotherapeutic approach.