| Abstract: | 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) |
