| Abstract: | This paper attempts to correct the misunderstanding of supportive therapy as non-specific, reassuring response to a patient's overwhelming stress. Supportive treatment methods require perceptive assessment of the particular coping skills used by the patient, and an understanding of the ways in which empathic contact revives the sense of capacity to endure. What is usefully supportive for one person may be anxiety provoking and undermining to another. Case examples are used to illustrate the clear definition, focus, and selectivity necessary in supportive treatment.Presented at a conference of the Department of Psychiatry, Mt. Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, MA Jan. 1977. At the time this work was done, the author was employed by McLean Hospital Outpatient Clinic and Harvard University Student Health Service, and on the Visiting Staff, Social Service Department, Mt. Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, MA |
