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Virtually every mental health professional has worked with patients who are overly dependent -- patients who have trouble asserting themselves within and outside therapy, alienate others with a pervasive pattern of clinging insecurity, and undermine their social and work relationships with frequent requests for help and reassurance. Such patients have always presented unique treatment challenges for therapists, but in today's managed care-driven environment, with its emphasis on time-limited therapy and cost-effective treatment, the overly dependent patient can be even more challenging.

Drawing on extensive study of the dynamics of dependency in clinical and research settings, Bornstein (psychology, Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania) presents a flexible rather than cookbook approach to working with such patients. He draws on studies of normal interpersonal relationships as well as patients with dependent personality disorder symptoms to present evidence-based models of the conceptual, developmental, and system basis and patterns of dependency. Messer's assimilative integration is cited as offering a method for combining strategies to maximize therapeutic outcomes in a managed care context and diverse settings. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Nicholas Greco IV, MS, BCETS, CATSM(Abbott Laboratories)
Description:This book delves into an all too common occurrence in clinical practice -- the dependent personality. As the environment is ever-changing, the clinician needs to have the needed skills and resources to effectively treat and manage these unique clinical challenges.
Purpose:This book is about working effectively with dependent patients as dependency is an important factor in clinical practice. It is also about building up one's armamentarium of knowledge and skills to effectively and individualistically adapt to various patients and situations. The book meets the author's objectives as well as the needs of the field itself.
Audience:Clearly, seasoned clinicians will benefit the most, along with those in graduate level training. The book has the ability to cross over disciplines such as medicine, social work, and nursing. The author is credible, and the reader can easily note the amount of clinical knowledge the author brings forth in his writing.
Features:One would expect nothing less than a detailed discussion of theories, assessment methods, and useful treatment approaches; however, the author gives the reader the clinical edge in understanding and acknowledging the presence and prevalence of the dependent personality. Highlights include chapters on Dependency Across the Life Span, Diagnosis, Assessment, and Approaches to Treatment. The author has a good writing style and is able to convey multiple messages well.
Assessment:This book has such a utility for the field that it deserves to be read and placed on all clinicians' shelves! Strongly recommended.

Annotation The Dependent Patient: A Practitioner's Guide presents an integrated, empirically based framework for diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of dependent psychotherapy patients. Virtually every mental health professional has worked with patients who are overly dependent?patients who have trouble asserting themselves within and outside therapy, alienate others with a pervasive pattern of clinging insecurity, and undermine their social and work relationships with frequent requests for help and reassurance. Such patients have always presented unique treatment challenges for therapists, but in today's managed care-driven environment, with its emphasis on time-limited therapy and cost-effective treatment, the overly dependent patient can be even more challenging. The Dependent Patient integrates ideas and findings from a broad array of theoretical perspectives. This book will be a valuable resource for any practitioner who works in an inpatient, outpatient, rehabilitation, or day treatment/partial hospitalization setting, regardless of the practitioner's background and level of training. Primary audience: Clinical or counseling psychologists actively engaged in psychological assessment, diagnosis, and/or treatment. Secondary audience: Personality and clinical researchers and clinical and counseling graduate students "This book is about working effectively with dependent patients. It discusses cutting-edge treatment techniques, outlines strategies for diagnosing dependency, and reviews procedures for assessing dependency-related personality dynamics that are not captured by formal diagnostic criteria. The central premise of this book is straightforward: Dependency is an important issue in clinical practice, but it is also a ubiquitous feature of human experience. We are, in the end, social creatures, bound to each other from our first days to our last. Thus, effective clinical work with dependent patients does not involve quashing dependency in all its forms, but replacing unhealthy dependency with healthy connectedness"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved) "The Dependent Patient : A Practitioner's Guide presents an integrated, empirically based framework for diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of dependent psychotherapy patients. Rather than being bound to a single theoretical view, The Dependent Patient integrates ideas and findings from a broad array of theoretical perspectives. This book will be a resource for any practitioner who works in an inpatient, outpatient, rehabilitation, or day treatment/partial hospitalization setting, regardless of the practitioner's background and level of training."--Résumé de l'éditeur