By incorporating therapeutic talk into daily practice, family doctors can solve and often prevent many psychological and behavioural problems. The approaches described in this text are designed not only to enhance the therapeutic relationship, but also to make practice more productive and pleasurable. In particular, they can be applied in the context of a standard length consultation, rather than lengthy therapy sessions.

Developed over two decades and four editions, the overwhelming consensus is that the strategies described in this book work: patients respond, practitioners save time, and provider-patient relationships become richer. The techniques will certainly increase readers’ abilities to recognize and treat common emotional problems. The approach is pragmatic, flexible and easily learned, and it works.

The bodymind and the role of the primary care practitioner, Patients, stress, and the office visit, Cognitive behavioral therapy and other practical therapeutic interventions, Starting with the BATHE technique, Rationale and techniques for fifteen-minute therapy, Agenda for the fifteen-minute counseling session, Therapeutic interventions for difficult patient situations, Accenting the positive: putting an affirmative spin on the BATHE technique, Handling special situations, staff, and assuring self-preservation, Wrapping up—integrating treatments, modifying lifestyles, getting results, Appendix A: Twelve good questions and three good answers for all seasons, Appendix B: Recommended books for patients

Marian R Stuart Phd and Joseph A Lieberman Iii Md Mph, Respectively Professor Emeritus of Family Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; Professor of Family Medicine, Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA