Directly inspired by the work of Jerome D. Frank and his field-defining book Persuasion and Healing, this volume of essays by distinguished contemporary scholars broadly assesses the current state of research and practice in psychotherapy. Editors Renato D. Alarcon, a former student of Frank's, and Julia B. Frank, Jerome Frank's daughter and coauthor, bring diverse perspectives to this work. Each chapter, based on one of the themes of Frank's classic book, offers honest critique and fearless criticism of psychotherapy as it has evolved in the twenty-first century. Contributors update classical psychotherapeutic concepts such as demoralization, hope, meaning, rhetoric, and cultural variation and add new insight into how the neuroscience revolution affects our understanding of mental organization and psychotherapy. As Frank did in his own time, these authors challenge the claims made for the specificity or superiority of cognitive behavioral, psychodynamic, and other varieties of psychotherapy, providing an honest evaluation of the value and limitations of many competing approaches to diagnosis and treatment. They also focus attention on psychotherapies for special populations, including children, people with serious medical illness, and those with culturally and religiously diverse backgrounds. Like Persuasion and Healing, The Psychotherapy of Hope advocates not for any particular approach but for psychotherapy more generally grounded in principles of evolutionary biology, culture, narrative, and behavior change. It provides researchers, theorists, and practitioners of every level of training with a genuinely phenomenological approach to a wide range of psychiatric issues. Echoing Frank's voice, in particular his emphasis on the commonalities of suffering and the therapeutic power of hope, this book offers scholarly wisdom and practical advice on how to understand psychotherapy broadly-and to apply its basic principles to the greatest benefit of patients.

Table of Contents:

Foreword, by Leon Eisenberg
Preface
Acknowledgments
A Note About Citations
Part I: Psychotherapy: Basic Principles
Chapter 1. Critical Thinking in the Design of Psychotherapy Research
Chapter 2. Life Story as the Focus of Psychotherapy: The Johns Hopkins Conceptual and Didactic Perspectives
Chapter 3. Neural Substrates of Psychotherapy
Chapter 4. Restoring Meaning to Psychiatric Diagnosis and Psychotherapy in the Age of Evolutionary Biology
Chapter 5. Cultural Concepts in Persuasion and Healing
Chapter 6. Deconstructing Demoralization: Subjective Incompetence and Distress in Adversity
Part II: Psychotherapy: Current Practices
Chapter 7. Depression, Demoralization, and Psychotherapy in People Who Are Medically Ill
Chapter 8. Demoralization and Hope in Clinical Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
Chapter 9. Psychotherapeutic Communication in Medical Settings
Chapter 10. Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: From Psychoanalytic Arrogance to Evidence-Based Modesty
Chapter 11. Behavioral and Condition-Specifi c Approaches to Psychotherapy
Chapter 12. Weighing Evidence for Common and Specific Factors in Psychotherapy with Children
Chapter 13. Contemporary Realities of Group Psychotherapy
Chapter 14. Cultural Dynamics in Psychotherapy and Cultural Psychotherapies: Ingredients, Processes, and Outcomes
Chapter 15. Psychotherapy, Religion, and Spirituality
List of Contributors
Index