This book is interesting, but it is far too "testbooky" and would benefit from being more focused on specific "how to" examples of treatment plans as do many other similar efforts. The text makes interesting reading, but, it didn't provide the concrete examples I expected.

Research suggests that an ever increasing number of practioners are relying on tools such as this to help formulate treatment plans.

As a graduate student, what I find useful about this book is that after you study a particular disorder---from the DSM-IV-TR itself, a good psychopathology text (see Davison & Neal's Abnormal Psychology), and the DSM's Diagnostic Criteria handbook, The Adult Psychotherapy Treatment Planner completes the loop.

I bought this book after taking a case studies class where the instructor did an absolutely miserable job in showing us the rhyme and reason behind a good treatment plan. Not satisfied that I knew enough about this critically important piece in the counseling process, I did some research and found this book to be the most highly regarded in this genre.

As subsequent classes deal with child and adolescent psychopathology, family psychopathology, etc. etc. I will be getting the treatment plans that correspond with these issues.