The Psychotherapy of Hope: The Legacy of Persuasion and Healing

Directly inspired by the work of Jerome D. Frank and his field-defining book Persuasion and Healing, this volume of essays by distinguished contemporary scholars broadly assesses the current state of research and practice in psychotherapy. Editors Renato D. Alarcón, a former student of Frank's, and Julia B. Frank, Jerome Frank's daughter and coauthor, bring diverse perspectives to the volume. Each chapter, based on one of the themes of Frank’s classic book, offers honest critique and fearless criticism of psychotherapy as it has evolved in the twenty-first century. Contributors update classical psychotherapeutic concepts such as demoralization, hope, meaning, rhetoric, and cultural variation and add new insight into how the neuroscience revolution affects our understanding of mental organization and psychotherapy. As Frank did in his own time, these authors challenge the claims made for the specificity or superiority of cognitive behavioral, psychodynamic, and other varieties of psychotherapy, providing a candid assessment of the value and limitations of many competing approaches to diagnosis and treatment. They also focus attention on psychotherapies for special populations, including children, people with serious medical illness, and those from culturally and religiously diverse backgrounds. Like Persuasion and Healing, this volume advocates not for any particular approach but for psychotherapy more generally grounded in principles of evolutionary biology, culture, narrative, and behavior change. It provides researchers, theorists, and practitioners of every kind of training with a genuinely phenomenological approach to a wide range of psychiatric issues. Echoing Frank's voice, in particular his emphasis on the commonalities of suffering and the therapeutic power of hope, The Psychotherapy of Hope offers scholarly wisdom and practical advice on how to understand psychotherapy—and apply its principles to the greatest benefit of patients.