Based on Perceptual Control Theory, PCT (explained in the foreword), this therapeutic method, called The Method of Levels (MOL) leaves the patient in control with no interference from the therapist.

Author Timothy Carey shows how you can ask very simple questions about background thoughts to assist people experiencing psychological distress. Without offering advice or commentary of any kind, you can help people review their problems by "going up a level" and reviewing their internal conflict "from above" enabling them to find ways to resolve the problem by changing their sense of what is important - changing how they look at, or consider, the conflict.

While working for Scotland's National Health Service Dr. Carey used the approach described in this book exclusively with his primary care patients. Some of his colleagues learned MOL from Dr. Carey and used it too. MOL achieved a new level of service efficiency such that a 15 month waiting list was reduced to 0 months.

From a review by Kalen Hammann: I've just finished the Method of Levels, and I'm astonished, delighted, and inspired. I was a psychotherapist for many years, using a variety of approaches (predominantly Gestalt Therapy, several versions of family therapy, and more recently Psychology of Mind), and while my clients were often happy with the results, I frequently wasn't. My fundamental dissatisfaction arose from the fact that I never knew WHY we were successful when we were, and what had gone wrong or failed to go right when we weren't. Now I think maybe at last I know.