ABSTRACT
Twenty-five years ago, while searching for a clinical theory that would both help me organize the information that patients presented in therapy and also help them to improve clinically, I found control-mastery theory, which has proven to be a powerfully productive tool for psychotherapy. Control-mastery theory provides a rich case formulation method that is case specific, flexible, and highly empirical when applied in either a direct clinical treatment or in formal research. Although this formulation method yields a case-specific perspective of the patient, it also allows therapists to develop their own personal style for particular patients. In this chapter, I briefly review the method of case formulation, present a detailed case formulation of a patient I treated using this method, and finally present examples of interventions I made using this formulation.
