ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book presents the current overvaluation of psychotherapy, but on a conceptual plane rather than as a cultural support, is the psychoanalytic overemphasis upon unconscious motivation as the central etiological mechanism in the production of neurotic symptoms. The chief practical implication that a psychology of ego development holds for the treatment of mental disorders is reiteration of the well-established principle that prevention is far more effective than therapy. To the patient, the therapist represents the expectations of the social reality to which he has not yet succeeded in adjusting adequately. Indications for special forms of directive therapy exist in: acute cases of maladjustment; cases rendered inaccessible to interpersonal intervention because of psychotic inaccessibility; the treatment of children and adolescents; and cases of chronic anxiety and other forms of chronic maladjustment.
