The Evolution of Psychotherapy

Abstract

This book reflects a landmark event in the history of psychotherapy, a convocation of over 27 major leaders in the field, many of whom had never previously met each other. The conference was held in December 1985, in Phoenix, Arizona, and was attended by more than 7,000 mental health professionals representing every discipline. It was sponsored by the Milton H. Erickson Foundation, which is appropriate because Erickson's hypnotherapeutic approach has been used in many disciplines in the field of psychotherapy during the last decade. To my knowledge, conferences with this degree of eclecticism were last sponsored by J. L. Moreno in the mid-1960s. Since that time, the idea of eclecticism has gradually become more respectable and more theoretically well grounded (Norcross, 1986; Beutler, 1983).