Formulation in Psychology and Psychotherapy: Making sense of people's problems

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This is an immensely useful book; practical, creative and still unique in its particular coverage of psychological models. Johnstone and Dallos' text, now in its second edition, has become a cornerstone of British clinical psychologist's thinking and training. Formulation in Psychology and Psychotherapy places this growing interest in formulation in a clinical and historical context. It contains new chapters on personal construct formulation, formulation in health settings, and the innovative practice of using formulation in teams.

Use of simulated multidisciplinary treatment teams and client actors to teach case conceptualisation and treatment planning skills. In: Case Formulation in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: The Treatment of Challenging and Complex Cases (ed. Both experienced and novice clinicians will be able to enhance their clinical skills and theoretical knowledge.Books like this one reemphasize the necessity of grounding clinical practice in clear articulations of theory and rich descriptions of clinets' lives and experiences.

Often, little attention is paid to how a formulation would be used to facilitate treatment within a particular model, in favour of its purely descriptive functions. Psychometric properties of the 42-item and 21-item versions of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales in clinical groups and a community sample. The right view of your patient: a computer-assisted, individualized module for psychotherapy training. Other authors are diverted into spending unnecessary words on outlining the principles of their model at the expense of its approach to formulation. It is fascinating to view the case studies through the lenses of each therapeutic approach, and the divergent ways of working that follow.Drawing on psychological theory, it attempts to examine a client or family's problems in terms of how they arose and what may currently be holding these in place. Although the former are this book's natural audience, I think it has much to offer inquiring psychiatric trainees. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in the concept of formulation (which should be all of us) and in comparing and contrasting different therapeutic approaches. Formulation is widely considered a critical component of psychological therapies, and is thought to have a number of benefits both for the therapeutic process and the client directly. A case formulation (case conceptualisation) can be thought of as any way of helping a client to understand what their difficulties are, where they originated, and what keeps them going.

The book is unique in including newer therapeutic approaches such as narrative therapy and social inequalities; it critiques and takes forward recent work on integration, and provides a lively and challenging critical evaluation of the area as a whole. The book encourages the reader to take a constructively critical perspective on the many philosophical, professional and ethical debates raised by the process of formulating people's problems. Seeing how therapists from each approach would work with the two clients helped clarify the similarities and differences between models.

The editors’ credulous stance in relation to the diatribes of Jeffrey Masson may also undermine some readers’ confidence. It demonstrates the richness of ideas which psychologists and therapists contribute to their understanding of clients' problems as well as confronting the complex issues arising from the idea of formulation itself. The guidelines have been developed for the Division of Clinical Psychology to promote best practice in psychological formulation, which is a core competence for clinical psychologists. Comparative accounts of the psychotherapies can provide brief portraits that don't convey what their relative strengths and weaknesses are.