The thing that made me want to read this textbook was actually the Foreword written by Dr. James A. Bourgeois, which you can read for free on the Springer website. My eyes widened as I read that the author "...takes a stance that can be considered "atheoretical," or respectful of many different psychotherapy traditions." and that the book offers "...a remarkably unifying theoretical framework of understanding of disorders of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, which translates into a cogent and patient-centered approach to psychotherapy." These things are germane to my own research and I am always excited to explore them.
My respect for Dr. Smith increased as I found a few free resources that he provides so as to make the information easier to assimiliate. This includes a 89-page PDF booklet, The Common Infrastructure of Psychotherapy, that gives a general overview of what the textbook contains, an even more condensed 9-page PDF "infographic" that summarizes it, and a 26-episode podcast that covers the textbook chapter-by-chapter. If you make use of any of this, I humbly suggest reading the 89-page PDF first and then working through the textbook, listening to the podcast episodes in order to review each chapter as you do so.
