Psychotherapy Research: Reflections on My Career and the State of the Art

This is a biographical sketch describing the author's origins and early years as a psychotherapy researcher. The second part of the article is devoted to a discussion of the author's “lived beliefs” that have guided his research over the past 30 years: The practice of psychotherapy should involve creativity and intuition; research is meaningful if it influences practice; psychotherapy involves cognitive and emotional learning—it is not a form of medical treatment; transference was among Freud's most important discoveries; psychotherapy has a great deal to offer under appropriate circumstances; and there are many techniques by which therapeutic results can be achieved.