ABSTRACT
This chapter presents David Malan’s reflections as he described his career from the 1950s to the present time, tracing his view of the process by which Experiential Dynamic Therapy (EDT) emerged from its psychoanalytic roots. David Malan has long had a wide influence on dynamic psychotherapy in the United States (UK) and his seminal textbook, Individual Psychotherapy and the Science of Psychodynamics, is essential reading on psychodynamic trainings. In Malan’s early research, the most intransigent of difficulties that therapy might address proved to be in the area of intimate relationships and commitment to intimacy. EDT therapists try to establish real contact with their patients, which can enable “corrective emotional experience” in conjunction with cognitive insight. An increasing number of EDT practitioners in the UK are adopting the use of session-by-session measures to track the progress of patients in therapy.
