ABSTRACT
There is a temptation at the end to say “where to begin.” Hopefully this book cycled between the rubber boundaries of psychotherapy that contain both drudgery and vision, both science and art. We attempted to remain “centered” on those easily discussed therapy polarities; immediacy versus transference, insight versus action, abstraction versus detail, and subjective versus objective. Our effort especially was to respect options on psychotherapy's epistemic scales; not to excessively codify and not to excessively create. There are no absolute “visions” here. Our realm is adequacy. We are presented with a problem and a craft, where, as professionals, we have just enough skills and technology to allow for effectiveness—to cause no harm, to soothe, to challenge, to help along the way—but not enough to result in permanent change. Emersed in our conceptual base camp is the conviction that this victim may not be cured but s/he will be affected. As psychotherapists then, we become fully alive companions to our clients, using the wisdom of subjectivity, and fully professional practitioners, using the flabby rubrics of our science. There is a good deal of skepticism in even the most “professional” of us and a good deal of hope in even the hard-core pessimists among us. Our craft and task are messy, but there is a noble messiness
