Review of Learning Disabilities and Psychic Conflict: A Psychoanalytic Casebook.

Review of book: Learning Disabilities and Psychic Conflict: A Psychoanalytic Casebook by Arden Aibel Rothstein and Jules Glenn, Madison, NJ: International Universities Press, 1999, 504 pp. Reviewed by Lucy M. Zabarenko. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory.

Greenberg and Mitchell's study of object relations in psychoanalytic theory is a valuable and insightful discussion and synthesis of disparate theoretical perspectives. Their work is timely in that the forefront of psychoanalytic theory and technique today is in the area of object relations; Greenberg and Mitchell's analysis of the object relations perspective is the most thorough, detailed, and complete theoretical discussions that the reviewer has read. In the reviewer's view, the book might have been strengthened if evidence other than theoretical and clinical material had been introduced in support of the authors' arguments, but their aim clearly did not involve assessing empirical support for object relations models. Thus, it is concluded that the authors' approach is valuable, but lacks breadth and denies the existence of some evidence that is potentially valuable in comparing different theoretical perspectives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Merleau-Ponty, interiority and exteriority, psychic life and the world.

Reviews the book, Merleau-Ponty, interiority and exteriority, psychic life and the world by Dorothea Olkowski and James Morley (1999). This book is a brief but informative and thoughtful anthology brings together the work of a number of contemporary scholars in philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, and comparative literature to demonstrate how Merleau-Ponty's understanding of the psyche (interiority) and the material world (exteriority) has not only tremendous implications for philosophy, but also for the natural and social sciences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reuniting the psychic couple in analytic training and practice: A candidate's experience.

In the course of training at a comparative psychoanalytic institute, the author fixed upon a technical question: how to find optimal psychological distance from her patients. She struggled to integrate the diverse perspectives that the literature provided on this question. She also became aware of a conflictual phantasy of a polarizing internal mother and father that underlay her interest in the question. A dream about her work with a control patient eventually allowed her, with the aid of both supervisor and personal analyst, to work through the phantasy, and to bring her internal psychic couple into creative contact with one another. As a result, her capacity to analyze her patient increased. The author concludes that when supervisors and seminar leaders (in addition to the candidate's analyst) make themselves available to unconscious aspects of a candidate's learning process, institutes provide a more spacious container for psychoanalytic development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Self and others: Object relations theory in practice.

Reviews the book, Self and others: Object relations theory in practice by N. Gregory Hamilton (see record 1988-97224-000). Hamilton's book, Self and Others, is useful because it attempts to render much of the complexity of understanding object relational approaches more negotiable. Without question, the book is addressed to the beginner or relative beginner (i.e., the person who wishes to get an introduction to object relations). However, because of its elementary focus, the book can be especially valuable for clinicians, residents, and related mental health trainees who are in the process of learning about object relations theory. Too often it seems introductory books on object relations either assume a knowledge the reader does not possess or become so overly mired in discussing the intricacies of theoretical controversy (e.g., Kohut versus Kernberg) that they leave the beginning student of psychoanalysis in a state of bewilderment. Such is not the case with Self and Others. Hamilton's book, while not being without its limitations, does have some interesting features to offer for beginning instruction in object relations theory. The book attempts to show how object relations theory can be applied in practice. Some interesting and instructive definitions, case examples, and discussion are provided, and they all can prove of value to the interested student of object relations theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Foundations and applications of group psychotherapy: A sphere of influence.

Reviews the book, Foundations and applications of group psychotherapy: A sphere of influence by Mark F. Ettin (see record 1992-97575-000). In a series of original chapters and adaptations of earlier stand-alone journal articles, Ettin reworks classic psychodynamic contributions and more recent object relations theorizing into a nicely organized and synthesized whole that compellingly underscores the necessity for appreciating the group qua group. The reviewer highlights several positive things about this book including the colorful, lyrical language and poignant clinical vignettes. However, there are some drawbacks: the text is "not an easy read." The language seems overly figurative and the material covered too expansive. Despite these drawbacks, this reviewer would recommend the book to novice as well as experienced practitioner. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Emotional first aid.

Reviews the book, Emotional first aid by Sean Haldane. When you have a friend who is experiencing emotional distress, Sean Haldane tells us in this book, you can make use of the principles of emotional first aid to unblock the emotion, allowing it a fuller, more direct expression, thereby alleviating the distress. For, according to Haldane, directly expressed emotions seldom cause trouble; it is blocked emotions that produce distress and damage. He believes that if one understands the way in which emotions are naturally expressed, one can frequently facilitate the proper expression of emotion by one's friend (or one's child), contributing in this way to the friend's (or the child's) more adaptive functioning. Haldane is a persuasive, charming writer. As I perused this book I had the impression that Haldane is a wise, compassionate, and skilful therapist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Conscious and unconscious: Freud's dynamic distinction reconsidered.

Reviews the book, Conscious and unconscious: Freud's dynamic distinction reconsidered by Patricia S. Herzog (see record 1991-97475-000). Patricia Herzog's book is a critical examination of the way in which Freud presented the conscious/unconscious distinction. Herzog is a philosopher, and she provides the careful, analysis of Freudian concepts that good philosophers can, but which is unfortunately often missing from psychoanalysis. Her concerns are not empirical or therapeutic bur conceptual: the consistencies, inconsistencies, and interrelations in the family of Freud's theoretical concepts which has conscious and unconscious as key members. Herzog has provided a scholarly, close-to-the-text treatment of Freud's conscious/unconscious distinction, most surely a central aspect of the theory of psychopathology. But her presentation makes it hard work to grasp and integrate the points, and the reader is left to struggle alone to discover the links between her critique of Freud and themes in modern psychoanalytic or other psychological theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The work of culture: Symbolic transformation in psychoanalysis and anthropology.

Reviews the book, The work of culture: Symbolic transformation in psychoanalysis and anthropology by Gananath Obeyesekere (1990). The reviewer states that the book offers the most sophisticated demonstration yet of the relevance of Freudian psychoanalysis to cultural interpretation by a scholar whose sensitivity to cultural differences should reassure the reader that this will be no mere "reduction" of variable symbols and meanings to the invariant properties of the dynamic unconscious. The four parts of the book are expanded versions of the Lewis Henry Morgan lectures, which Obeyesekere delivered at the University of Rochester. Throughout the book, Obeyesekere explores what he calls "symbolic remove"--the process through which symbolic forms existing at the cultural level. are created and recreated through the minds of individuals. Symbols thus created are regressive because of their ontogenesis in individual development and unconscious processes, while also being progressive, in that the unconscious thought transforms the archaic motivations of early experience and looks forward to their realization in experience of the sacred. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Comparing psychoanalytic psychotherapies.

Reviews the book, Comparing psychoanalytic psychotherapies by James Masterson, Marian Tolpin, and Peter Sifneos (see record 1991-97790-000). There has been growing interest in recent years in the treatment of the difficult patient who usually comes under the diagnostic categories of Borderline and Narcissistic Personality Disorders. Self Psychology and Object Relations theories have developed particularly refined approaches to working with these personality disorders. For the neuroses, Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy has been another new technique. This book attempts to better define the similarities and differences between these contrasting approaches. This book of dialogues is potentially interesting and useful to clinicians who are already experienced in working with Borderline and Narcissistic Disorders and are looking for deeper understanding of these phenomena. The comparison with short-term treatment of neurotics is less relevant and for comparison sake has limited value. The format makes it difficult to read, but renders the authors, their ideas, and their interventions more real to the reader. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Object Relations Family Therapy.

The authors illustrate the application of the British object relations theory to psychoanalytic work with individuals, couples, and families. The basis for their approach rests primarily on Fairbairn's theoretical constructions, and--to a lesser extent--on some of the contributions of Winnicott, Guntrip, Balint, Klein, and Bion. The authors stress the utilitarian value of object relations theory to interpersonal interactions characteristic of families and couples. In contrast, classical psychoanalytic instinct theory is essentially an intrapsychic frame of reference, useful in individual psychoanalysis, but of limited empirical value in group work. The Scharffs demonstrate how one can apply Fairbairnian principles, with some modifications, to understanding families from theoretical, developmental, and therapeutic perspectives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of A new psychology of men.

Reviews the book, A new psychology of men edited by Ronald F. Levant and William S. Pollack (see record 1995-97524-000). The intent of this book is to "'describe how men's prescribed roles are neither biological nor social givens but rather psychological and social constructions.'" The Theory section includes four chapters primarily focused on social constructivism and psychoanalytic (or perhaps more accurately object-relations theory) views on masculinity. The second section, Research, provides three chapters by researchers of what seem to be disparate orientations. The third section, Applications, is appropriately more practical and speaks to clinicians. The fourth and final section, The Varieties of Masculinity, samples in three chapters issues of ethnic minority males, homosexual and bisexual males, and a final chapter (by the editors) looking to the future and summarizing conclusions from the preceding chapters. The reviewer finds several flaws in this book including interventions that are not applicable and an imbalance in the authors' orientations. However, the reviewer believes that researchers may find the volume helpful in generating hypotheses and new research directions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Theories of the unconscious and theories of the self.

Reviews the book, Theories of the Unconscious and Theories of the Self by Raphael Stern (see record 1987-97911-000). An edited book always faces a dilemma. Ideally, it approaches a topic from various perspectives, allowing experts in the field to present their views on the topic and providing a context in which the reader can discover the similarities and differences among those experts' views. However, if the topic is not clearly defined, if the experts address a variety of unrelated issues, then the sense of interlocking perspectives and the push towards synthesis collapses. It is a thin line between a collection of papers that revolve meaningfully around an issue, and a conglomeration of chapters. Stern's book balances precariously along this line. It is the outcome of a group of conferences sponsored by the Association for Philosophy of Science, Psychotherapy, and Ethics--an organization of linguists, psychotherapists, philosophers, mathematicians, and neurophysiologists. A diversity of contributors can be an asset: Too many cooks do not necessarily spoil the broth. In the case of Stern's book, the downfall comes from this diverse set of experts addressing, as the title makes evident, a very broad topic. Along the wide vista of the psychoanalytic world, what is not subsumed under the concepts of the unconscious and the self? The book seems to strive for an identity as a psychoanalytic work, or at least attempts to pivot around psychoanalytic themes--but at times even this focus dissolves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Object constancy: The illusion of being seen.

Recent theoretical advances in the concept of object constancy have placed it in the context of the child's establishing a separate identity. Although these advances were partly the result of examining the child's growing abilities to evoke a mental image of the absent mother, constancy cannot be well understood as a type of mental representation. It more resembles an illusion, specifically the illusion that the mother is constantly available in her mirroring function. The child's sense of his or her own reality is born in the mother's affectively attuned mirroring, as nothing about the child is real for the child until first seen by the mother. The illusion of the constant object allows the child to construct a sense of his or her own separate reality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Conflict and Mood.

Reviews the book "Conflict and mood," by Patricia Kendall (see record 1955-02101-000). The studies reported in this small, lithoprinted volume are devoted to identifying factors leading to shift in responses to repeated attitude survey questionnaires and interviews. Conflict and mood were hypothesized as prime factors specifically related to response instability. From a methodological viewpoint, these studies are important in giving specification to factors that should be controlled in questionnaire construction. Respondent conflict and mood were the major variables studied. This reviewer however, would seriously question if one of the other factors was not indeed affecting the experimental responses analyzed in terms of conflict and mood. This other factor is the degree of respondent interest and concern. The author points out that this is a dimension of increasingly recognizable importance in surveys and that lack of interest leads to perfunctory, unstable responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of contemporary group psychotherapy: Contributions from object relations, self psychology, and social systems theories.

Reviews the book, Handbook of contemporary group psychotherapy: Contributions from object relations, self psychology, and social systems theories edited by Robert H. Klein, Harold S. Bernard, and David L. Singer (see record 1992-98341-000). Divided into three large sections, the book addresses recent theoretical developments, the clinical applications to patient care and the role of the therapist, each from the standpoint of object relations theory, self psychological theory and social systems theory. The chapters in this book are intended to clarify and integrate different theoretical perspectives with the business of daily practice and application to the group milieu. The reviewer points out several problems with the text including lack of consistency, minor inaccuracies, redundancy among chapters, occasional outdated references and, perhaps most cogent of these carps, the rather wide variation in quality among the different chapters. Nevertheless, the reviewer highly recommends this book for all practitioners and students of group therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)