Lester B. Luborsky (1920–2009) was one of the founders of scientific research in psychotherapy. Luborsky was born and raised in Philadelphia. He graduated from Philadelphia Central High School and then earned his bachelor's degree at

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

. Luborsky received his Ph.D. in psychology from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

. He was an instructor at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

for two years. He then spent eleven years at the

Menninger Foundation The Menninger Foundation was founded in 1919 by the Menninger family in Topeka, Kansas. The Menninger Foundation, known locally as Menninger's, consists of a clinic, a sanatorium, and a school of psychiatry, all of which bear the Menninger name. ...

before joining the faculty of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. In 1973–1974 Luborsky served as president of the

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Career

Author of nine books and over 400 articles, he had the rare ability to apply a scientific eye to the personal processes of psychotherapy. He examined the factors that make psychotherapy work, along with large-scale studies of outcome. Among his major research contributions were the development of methods that could be used to study therapeutic processes, notably the symptom–context method, which gives a way to understand and study symptoms as they occur, and the CCRT (

core conflictual relationship theme The core conflictual relationship theme, or CCRT, is an analytic tool developed in the late twentieth century by Lester Luborsky, as an aid both to brief psychotherapy in the psychodynamic tradition, and to researching its efficacy. Origins Drawin ...

) method, which allows for the study of the psychoanalytic concept of the transference. Other measures include The Helping Alliance, which gives a way to study the impact of the therapeutic relationship, and Health–Sickness Rating Scale, which was later adapted to become the

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(Axis V) in the

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (DSM; latest edition: DSM-5-TR, published in March 2022) is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders using a common langua ...

(DSM), as noted in the DSM-IV. He received numerous awards, among them the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Applications of Psychology by the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

, The Sigourney Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Field of Psychoanalysis, and The Award for Distinguished Psychoanalytic Theory and Research by the

American Psychoanalytic Association The American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) is an association of psychoanalysts in the United States. APsaA serves as a scientific and professional organization with a focus on education, research, and membership development. APsaA comprises 3 ...

Publications

* Luborsky (1984) ''Principles of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Manual for Supportive-Expressive (SE) Treatment'' * Luborsky & Crits-Christoph (1990, reissued in 1998) ''Understanding Transference, The Core Conflictual Theme Method'' * Luborsky (1996) ''The Symptom-Context Method: Symptoms as Opportunities in Psychotherapy'' * Luborsky, L & Luborsky, E (2006) ''Research & Psychotherapy: The Vital Link''

Career

Publications

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Further reading