Description
Book SynopsisThis book is a unique and superb gateway to current psychoanalytic thinking. Thirty of America's foremost psychoanalysts—leaders in defining the current pluralistic state of the profession—have each presented what they consider to be their most significant contribution to the field. No mere anthology, these are the key writings that underlie current discussions of psychoanalytic theory and technique.
The chapters cover contemporary ideas of intersubjectivity, object relations theory, self psychology, relational psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, clinical technique, changing concepts of unconscious, empirical research, infant observation, gender and sexuality, and more. While the differences in point of view are profound, there is also a striking coherence on some core issues. Each of the contributions features an introduction by the volume editor and a note by the author explaining the rationale for its selection. The brilliant introduction by Peter Fonagy provides an overview and places each author in the context of contemporary psychoanalysis.
A list of the authors may convey the astonishing breadth of this volume:
Brenner, Bromberg, Busch, Chodorow, Cooper, Emde, Friedman, Gabbard, Goldberg, Greenberg, Grossman, Hoffman, Jacobs, Kantrowitz, Kernberg, Levenson, Luborsky, Michels, Ogden, Ornstein, Person, Pine, Renik, Schafer, Schwaber, Shapiro, Smith, Stern, Stolorow, Wallerstein
This is a "best of the best" volume—cutting-edge writing, highly accessible and studded with vivid clinical illustrations. Anyone wishing to acquire a comprehensive, authoritative, readily accessible—even entertaining—guide to American psychoanalytic thinking will find their goal fulfilled in this monumental collection.
Trade ReviewThe chapters encompass the broadly ranging currents of contemporary analytic thinking while serving the useful purpose of drawing these seminal papers together under a single cover. Students of psychoanalytic theory and practice will appreciate this collection as a useful compendium of current mainline perspectives in psychoanalysis.
* Bulletin of Menninger Clinic *
[Contemporary Psychoanalysis in America] is an excellent and much needed book. With the advent of self psychology and ego psychology's loss of dominance, there has been an explosion of new theories and ideas in the mainstream. This book does a wonderful job of bringing together all of these, from intersubjectivity to infant psychology, in one easily accessible format. I would highly recommend this to anyone in the field of psychoanalysis or psychology.
* Doody's Book Review Service *
Table of ContentsContributors
Preface
Introduction: Walking Among Giants
Chapter 1. Conflict, compromise formation and structural theory
Chapter 2. Treating patients with symptoms—and symptoms with patience: reflections on shame, dissociation, and eating disorders
Chapter 3. "In the neighborhood": aspects of a good interpretation and a "developmental lag" in ego psychology
Chapter 4. Heterosexuality as a compromise formation: reflections on the psychoanalytic theory of sexual development
Chapter 5. The narcissistic-masochistic character
Chapter 6. Mobilizing fundamental modes of development: empathic availability and therapeutic action
Chapter 7. Ferrum, ignis, and medicina: return to the crucible
Chapter 8. Miscarriages of psychoanalytic treatment with suicidal patients
Chapter 9. Between empathy and judgment
Chapter 10. Conflict in the middle voice
Chapter 11. The self as fantasy: fantasy as theory
Chapter 12. Ritual and spontaneity in the psychoanalytic process
Chapter 13. On misreading and misleading patients: some reflections on communications, miscommunications, and countertransference enactments
Chapter 14. The external observer and the lens of the patient-analyst match
Chapter 15. Recent developments in the technical approaches of English-language psychoanalytic schools
Chapter 16. The pursuit of the particular: on the psychoanalytic inquiry
Chapter 17. A relationship pattern measure: the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme
Chapter 18. Psychoanalysts' theories
Chapter 19. The analytic third: implications for psychoanalytic theory and technique
Chapter 20. Chronic rage from underground: reflections on its structure and treatment
Chapter 21. Knowledge and authority: the godfather fantasy
Chapter 22. The four psychologies of psychoanalysis and their place in clinical work
Chapter 23. Playing one's cards face up in analysis: an approach to the problem of self-disclosure
Chapter 24. Narration in the psychoanalytic dialogue: psychoanalytic theories as narratives
Chapter 25. The struggle to listen: continuing reflections, lingering paradoxes, and some thoughts on recovery of memory
Chapter 26. On reminiscences
Chapter 27. Countertransference, conflictual listening, and the analytic object relationship
Chapter 28. Some implications of infant observations for psychoanalysis
Chapter 29. World horizons: a post-Cartesian alternative to the Freudian unconscious
Chapter 30. One psychoanalysis or many?
Index
