Review of A disturbance in the field: Essays in transference-countertransference engagement.

Reviews the book, A disturbance in the field: Essays in transference-countertransference engagement by Steven Cooper (see record 2010-09125-000). At the beginning of this book, Cooper states that he is interested in finding the common ground, clinically, between the relational approach and other schools such as the Kleinian, Freudian, Kohutian, and others. In the introduction, Cooper states he will be examining the moments of transition, change, and newness that occur in psychoanalytic treatment. He alerts us that although he is very interested in countertransference as a clinical tool and the analyst’s imagination as helpful in the therapeutic work, he warns us to not see these elements in any heroic or idealistic manner. Cooper promises to explore the areas of unconscious conflict, fantasy, and the interpersonal process and believes both patient and analyst try to hold these dimensions in mind and communicate with each other throughout the clinical process. Overall, the reviewer enjoyed reading the book but was disappointed in that Cooper’s outline of what the reader can expect does not unfold. What is offered in this book is interesting, and at times illuminating, but overall runs somewhat flat. There were numerous places where Cooper could have taken his discussion points and tried to build a new fusion of relational, Freudian, Kleinian, and Kohutian approaches but he did not. The reviewer found it interesting that his case material seems to be a standard yet very skilled and natural combination of such views, but he does not elaborate on any theoretical matters or examine his case material as being predominantly a combination of such views. Therefore, the reviewer thinks there are many helpful and insightful points made in this book, but he was never really moved in any particular manner by the text. When reading his case material closely, the reviewer was struck by it being solid analytic work that seemed mostly of a Freudian and object relational mode, but again not anything unique or anything showing a new method of consolidating different theoretical approaches, which is what we were promised early on. The reviewer's overall reaction to this new book is that he is very appreciative of many individual chapters, and many sections of certain chapters, but they never all came together as a whole or jelled as a unifying theme that felt new and transformative. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Freud and the Rat Man.

Reviews the book, Freud and the Rat Man by Patrick J. Mahony (1986). Mahony has three general aims in this book. One, his main purpose, is to show how dynamic, transference, and countertransference issues influence Freud's expressive style and are also revealed in the linguistic and para-linguistic characteristics of patient/therapist verbal interactions. His second aim is to demonstrate the inadequacy of much of Strachey's English translation of Freud's writings. The third, and, in the view of this reader, the most interesting theme of the book focuses on the degree of congruence between Freud's process notes and the published case history of the Rat Man. One finds in this book two contradictory stances--on the one hand, there is Mahony the skeptic uncovering inaccuracies in Freud's published case history and raising some critical issues. On the other hand, a good part of the book reflects some of the difficulties that afflict a good deal of psychoanalytic writing--difficulties that, given Mahony's impressive critical abilities, one would have expected him to avoid. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The power of countertransference: Innovations in analytic technique.

Reviews the book, The power of countertransference: Innovations in analytic technique by Karen J. Maroda (see record 1994-98465-000). This is a remarkable and provocative book. On first examination, I thought it was going to be another diatribe against psychoanalytic theory and practice. In the introduction and first chapter, which Maroda entitles: "The Myth of Authority," she points out all of the flaws that she sees in the typical attitude of psychoanalytically oriented analysts. She criticizes the so-called "neutrality" of the analytic position, the authoritarian position of the analyst and the excess emphasis of interpretation as the most critical aspect of the "cure" in psychoanalysis. The rest of the book, however, focuses on countertransference techniques; that is, how to accomplish the countertransference. Maroda's clinical vignettes and technical discussions are detailed and useful. Although one might take issue with some specific clinical points, her discussion is well formulated and her case well argued. This is a rather brief and, at first blush, simple book. It is, however, an important statement of a position on countertransference that is both ground breaking, and a careful exposition. It is one that needs serious attention by both students and advanced clinicians. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Confidentiality: Ethical perspectives and clinical dilemmas.

Reviews the book Confidentiality: Ethical Perspectives and Clinical Dilemmas (2003), edited by Levin, Furlong, and O'Neill. This book consists of 20 chapters arranged into 4 sections addressing first a broad overview of confidentiality concerns and then training and research problems, clinical issues, and a concluding section on ethics and law. The reviewer believes that the only regrettable aspect of this fascinating text is its seemingly rather narrow origins, which concern psychoanalysis and (presumably) most psychoanalytically derived or informed psychotherapy. Its editors emphasize treatment methods that rely on transference-countertransference phenomena. In turn, these treatment methods emphasize a clear-cut recognition of irrational sources of patient behavior, including the giving (or not giving) of "consent" to therapist disclosures. However, this book deserves to reach all therapists, not just those committed to a single school of thought. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Countertransference temptation and the use of self of self-disclosure by psychotherapists in training: A discussion for beginning psychotherapists and their supervisors.

Most recent articles on self-disclosure have addressed advanced questions of theory and technique related to self-disclosure in psychoanalysis. This article, however, takes up issues related to the use of self-disclosure by psychotherapists in training. Rather than arguing categorically that beginning psychotherapists should or should not use self-disclosure, the focus here is on the factors influencing the decision of whether or not to make a self-disclosure. Illustrated by 2 case examples, it is argued that because of their relative lack of experience in working with transference and countertransference, beginning therapists are especially susceptible to the temptation to use self-disclosure and nondisclosure to close off--rather than to analyze--a patient's intense transference feelings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transference and countertransference in the lawyer-client relationship: Psychoanalysis applied in estate planning.

Transference and countertransference forces in the lawyer-client relationship can interfere with the successful completion of the legal work the client retained the lawyer to perform. In such instances, a working knowledge of the concepts of transference and countertransference can aid lawyers in recognizing and managing these forces when they threaten to be disruptive. In more complex cases, a consultation with a psychoanalyst can be highly beneficial to the lawyer in understanding and working with the transferences and countertransferences at play. Two cases from an estate planning law practice are presented to illustrate transference-countertransference dynamics in the lawyer-client relationship as well as how psychoanalytic education and consultation can help lawyers avoid enactments that lead to stalemates and failures in legal practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Ego defenses: Theory and measurement.

Reviews the book, Ego defenses: Theory and measurement by H. R. Conte and R. Plutchik (see record 1994-98641-000). This book comprehensively examines one of the most influential concepts in psychotherapy and counseling, that of defenses and their role in the therapeutic process. It is very well-written and exhaustive in the sense that covers a wide range of issues related to defenses from conceptual and theoretical to issues of clinical application and measurement. Stemming out of a psychoanalytic/psychodynamic perspective the authors revisit the area of defenses and provide an all encompassing presentation of the major issues surrounding the importance, function and usefulness of defenses in psychotherapy and counseling. The book is divided in two parts. The first examines theoretical and conceptual issues surrounding ego defenses and provides several theories and models for comprehending ego defenses. The second concentrates on the methods used to measure, evaluate and objectify ego defenses. The editors' effort to include a wide spectrum of authors who present different conceptualizations, theoretical approaches, and a variety of measurement methodologies is successful and should be commended. The only reservation the reviewer holds about this book is related to the fact that the concept of ego defenses is closely related to insight oriented therapies and approaches and to a constructivist epistemology of human nature. As such, it would prove useless to these clinicians who adhere to behavioral or existential epistemological perspectives to explain and comprehend human nature. All in all, this book is a necessary addition to all those—academics, clinicians and researchers—who in one way or another deal with emotions, human functioning, and psychotherapeutic change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical interaction and the analysis of meaning: A new psychoanalytic theory.

Reviews the book, Clinical interaction and the analysis of meaning: A new psychoanalytic theory by T. Dorpat and M. Miller (see record 1992-98407-000). This text views psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy from the perspective of the newly proposed concept of "Meaning Analysis." The authors purport to advance psychoanalytic theory and technique by taking a fresh perspective on two important aspects of analytic encounter: the interaction between the analyst and analysand (therapist and patient) and how interactions in this relationship affect transference and countertransference. This book also examines the analysis of meaning and how treatment can assist in the understanding and reconstruction of client beliefs. The authors present a reanalysis of Freud's theory and the goal of the book is to elucidate the "flaws" in his work. The reviewer believes that many readers will be intrigued by the criticisms of Freud and the blending of more recent research into analytic models. This book is recommended for both analytically oriented therapists and interested readers who want to learn more about analytic treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of A way of looking at things: Selected papers of Erik H. Erickson 1930-1980.

Reviews the book, A way of looking at things: Selected papers of Erik H. Erickson 1930-1980 edited by Stephen Schlein (1987). Schlein has done a commendable job of bringing together into one volume a rich body of Erik Erikson's less-known writings. The result is a very lengthy book that lends itself more to leisurely perusal than critical review. Schlein has arranged 47 papers, 12 of which appear in print for the first time, many more of which have been hidden away in obscure publications, into the eight thematic sections of which the book comprises. Everyone broadly interested in the history of psychoanalysis, the evolution of ego psychology, and the role played by Erik H. Erikson in each should enjoy reading this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Psychoanalytic-Marxism: Groundwork.

Reviews the book, Psychoanalytic-Marxism: Groundwork by Eugene Victor Wolfenstein (see record 1994-97657-000). Wolfenstein's is the first work in the Freudo-Marxist tradition to fully conceptualize the intersection of Marxism and psychoanalysis as a field in its own right. Psychoanalytic-Marxism is therefore definitive in a twofold sense--as the most wide-ranging and thorough treatment of the subject now extant and as a work that literally defines what the subject is all about and lays out its relations to other lines of inquiry and practical endeavor. The reader of Psychoanalytic-Marxism: Groundwork should not expect easy going. This is a treatise, and its aim is comprehensiveness and theoretical precision rather than flashiness or a quick fix. Freud and Marx explored distinct domains each of which should be included in a comprehensive approach to human existence. In this sense, the discourses can be conjoined. But they also represent basically different, indeed contradictory values. At this level, a choice must be made, and Wolfenstein, though a practicing analyst, has made it for Marx. This results in a twofold principle: First, that the world is an unfree place; human development is stunted by this unfreedom, or domination, and the business of a conscientious person is to try to emancipate people from domination. And second, that the principal form of domination with which we contend, insofar as human effort can make any difference, is capitalism. Whether this remarkable work gets the recognition it deserves depends in part on the willingness of its readership to exert their intellectual muscles, and in another part on the degree to which we are willing to challenge seriously the received image of the benign neutrality of our social order. I can only hope that Psychoanalytic-Marxism takes its deserved place as one of the major intellectual syntheses of our time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Recollecting Freud.

Reviews the book, Recollecting Freud by Isidor Sadger (2005). The author, Isidor Sadger (1867-1942), was a Viennese neurologist who first heard Freud lecture in September 1895, and then later joined (1906) Freud's Wednesday Psychological Society. The name of that organization was later changed to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, and Sadger remained in it until 1933. The book itself contains, he tells us, "nothing other than what I personally experienced, and the impressions that Freud's character, his actions and writing made on me. In no place have I sought to present biographical details that I did not myself witness" (p. 5). This review is presented in two parts: (1) an examination of its merits and limitations, and (2) an explanation of how a text first written in the late 1920s came to be published now for the first time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Progress in Self Psychology, Volume 2.

Similar to the 1st volume of Progress in Self Psychology, this 2nd volume is a collection of invited papers and papers from national conferences devoted to this area of psychoanalysis. According to Goldberg, these volumes are intended, perhaps temporarily, to serve as a substitute for a journal in self-psychology. Loosely divided into sections on theory, clinical problems, development, and applied psychoanalysis, the collection serves as a sampler of contemporary issues, but does not provide a unified structure for theory and practice that some readers may expect of want from a cutting-edge book. The one issue that rings clearly throughout the book is how self psychology compares and contrasts to classical psychoanalysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Dimensions of psychoanalysis.

Reviews the book, Dimensions of psychoanalysis edited by Joseph Sandler (see record 1990-97786-000). Dimensions of psychoanalysis is a collection of Inaugural Lectures by the sequence of scholars who held the Freud chair in London while it was assigned to visiting dignitaries. The book represents a fertile decade in the history of the discipline. Despite the heterogeneity of the viewpoints contained in the volume, it is striking that some of the most influential intellectual and clinical initiatives of the period are neither represented nor even mentioned in this book. There is no reason to look for comprehensiveness or a balance of viewpoints in a volume commemorating a lecture series, but it is well to remember that psychoanalysis has many dimensions absent from this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Freud and Psychology.

Reviews the book, Freud and Psychology edited by S. G. M. Lee and Martin Herbert (see record 1971-29146-000). This volume presents twenty papers, an introduction and bibliographies on psychoanalysis. The papers are divided into seven sections which are headed "Psychoanalysis as Science: General Theoretical Considerations", "Psychoanalysis as Science: Methodological Considerations", "Freud's Genetic Theories: Infant Experience and Adult Behaviour", Psychosexual Development and Character Formation", "Defence Mechanisms", "Unconscious Motivation and Dreaming", and "Conclusions." The authors are psychologists and psychoanalysts of many persuasions who originally published these works between 1938 and 1966. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transference: Psychic reality and material reality.

This article explores the impact of material reality in the form of the analyst's unrecognized and enacted countertransference on a patient's psychic reality (PR) as it presents in the transference. PR refers to a patient's experience in the transference and to an organization of unconscious fantasies, encoded as compromise formations, that actively structures the present and can be inferred from the data of psychoanalysis. Clinical material is presented in support of the author's belief that PR plays the central role in the construction of the transference and that material reality can influence both the nature and form of the transference through the activation or inhibition of different sets of fantasies in the analyst and the patient. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of What’s behind the research? Discovering hidden assumptions in the behavioral sciences.

Reviews the book, What’s behind the research? Discovering hidden assumptions in the behavioral sciences by Brent D. Slife and Richard N. Williams (1995). As the book's subtitle indicates, the authors' purpose is to assist the reader in Discovering hidden assumptions in the behavioral sciences, a worthy objective not likely to be realized simply through a love affair with "information" and its packaging. Slife and Williams state their mission clearly: "Presenting (behavioral sciences') hidden assumptions, along with their costs and consequences, is our task in this book. Whether you are a student of the behavioral sciences, therapist, educator, businessperson, or simply a consumer of behavioral science information, you will need to know the implicit ideas in that information. What are the main interpretations of the data by scientists? What alternative methods are available for gathering knowledge? What ideas are embedded in the usual approaches to abnormality and treatment? Are there other ideas available for generating solutions to human problems? Do conventional approaches to business or education include assumptions about the world or human nature that are questionable or unacceptable to the people who use them? We attempt to answer these and many other questions." In most respects, Slife and Williams do a splendid job at this. Many of the central conceptual issues Slife and Williams have raised have been treated before (by, among others, the mentor of both authors and the scholar to whom they have dedicated their work, Joseph Rychlak, but I know of no work the equal of this one in presenting the material in a way so accessible to previously uninitiated students and the intelligent and interested lay public. Surely this book will be welcomed by those scholars and educators who would wish to move psychology and the other behavioral sciences into the 21st century shorne of their positivistic leanings and empiricist pretensions, and re-oriented toward a more apposite science of human nature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Awakening the dreamer: Clinical journeys.

Reviews the book, Awakening the dreamer: Clinical journeys by Philip M. Bromberg (see record 2006-08993-000). Engaging with the many dimensions of Bromberg’s absorbing writing opens the reader/clinician, of whatever theoretical persuasion, to other self states and new and “other” thoughts about the psychoanalytic process. Bromberg approaches psychoanalytic work in a deeply personal manner that enables him to articulate the reasons why it is not only acceptable but also entirely necessary for the analyst to engage personally with the patient. He also creates a personally impactful psychoanalytic reading experience for his readers. The engagement of reader and author also captures one of the major themes in Bromberg’s contribution: that healthy psychological functioning involves the freedom to access different self states, to live in the “polyphony” of the self rather than in fragmented dissociated and sequestered self states, and, through that polyphony, to find self-coherence and immediacy in living. This volume draws on contemporary developments in psychoanalysis, attachment theory, neuropsychology, child development, and Bromberg’s abiding faith in literature, poetry, and the imagination. It presents a thorough and fully formed statement of Bromberg’s unique body of work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Transference: Its meaning and function in psychoanalytic therapy.

Reviews the book, Transference: its meaning and function in psychoanalytic therapy by Benjamin Wolstein (see record 1955-01021-000). The book reflects the groping trends of opinion developing from therapeutic experience and from increased awareness of the problems of definition. Many questions related to transference are brought closer to the status of answerable questions. The author sees transference in terms of observable here-and-now behavior. He keeps the focus on present interactions with careful attention to the therapist as an interbehaving organism (countertransference) rather than as a hypnotic authority. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Speak of me as I am: The life and work of Masud Khan.

Reviews the book, Speak of me as I am: The life and work of Masud Khan by Judy Cooper (1993). Controversy surrounding M. Masud R. Khan the person usually crowds out serious consideration of his psychoanalytic writings. In Speak of me as I am, Judy Cooper, a psychotherapist in London, convincingly demonstrates that, despite his life, Khan's work has enduring value and would amply reward anyone who studies it. She has a difficult task, to give the reader a familiarity--and even sympathy--with Khan while not minimizing his always off-putting and frequently repulsive behavior. One would think that the task would be all the more daunting because she herself had an analysis with Khan from 1967 to 1973. Far from providing an idealized portrait of her former analyst, however, Cooper openly discusses Khan's shortcomings. The book is so successful in part because her years of closeness with him enable her to convey an insider's sense of what Khan was like. In a compact space--only 122 pages of text--Cooper achieves her main purposes: familiarizing the reader with Khan's life and work while also evaluating his contributions to psychoanalysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Self inquiry.

Reviews the book, Self inquiry by M. Robert Gardner (1983). Gardner's fundamental insight is "that the psychoanalyst's main aim, now as in Freud's time, is, or might well be, to advance his or her own self inquiry to help his or her patients to advance their self inquiry to help him or her to advance his or hers. And so on. And so on" (pp. 7-8). Consequently, one of his key concepts, when describing the psychoanalytic work, is mutuality. It should be noted that what Gardner terms "self inquiry" is a rather humble activity, whether it is carried out by analysts or other human beings. Still, this kind of humble activity is ubiquitous, unavoidable, and pervasive. Self inquiry turns out to be written by a psychoanalyst of the purest water, in spite of the author's unconventional way of reasoning. I think that most experienced analysts will find such paradoxical formulations provocative but, above all, profoundly true. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)