Coparticipant Psychoanalysis: Toward a New Theory of Clinical Inquiry, by John Fiscalini,  Columbia University Press, New York, 2004,  242 pp.

I offered to review Coparticipant Psychoanalysis: Toward a New Theory of Clinical Inquiry, because although I had only met John Fiscalini casually, I had from time to time come across his clinical insights. These had always impressed me and I looked forward to the opportunity to learn something. As it turned out, I was richly rewarded and perhaps just for this reason, I found the task of composing the actual review particularly daunting. For one thing, Fiscalini's lucidity of expression belies the complexity of his ideas. In the Interpersonalist tradition, Fiscalini links the psychoanalytic process to epistemology. However he departs radically in moving from the position of participant observation to co-participation. As he does so, he weaves in a theory of the self and a developmental schema for varieties of narcissism. Perhaps more than anything else, he offers an approach to the psychoanalytic relationship that, while built on the Interpersonalist foundation of empathy, goes beyond it. It is this vision that makes the book so important and from which I learned the most but which is also so difficult to convey in a traditional book review. The idea of an interview presented itself and I am grateful to the Editors of the Journal and Dr. Fiscalini for consenting. What follows is a transcript with the editing kept to an absolute minimum for the purpose of conveying Fiscalini's sensibility.