Coasting in the Countertransference: Conflicts of Self Interest between Analyst and Patient, Irwin Hirsch,  The Analytic Press, Taylor and Francis Group, New York and London, 2008,  220 pp.

In his new book, Coasting in the Countertransference: Conflicts of Self Interest between Analyst and Patient, Irwin Hirsch calls attention to what he believes are harmful as well as ubiquitous variants of clinical behavior. He is troubled in particular by the common tendency of analysts to consciously linger for too long in

dyadic states of equilibrium rather than work more conscientiously toward uncomfortable but useful states of destabilization. His book, which reflects a contemporary interpersonalist point of view, stands as a cautionary against too wholehearted a celebration of the countertransference experience that is central to today's two-person thinking:

If the examination of the experience and participation of both parties in the dyad is to be as thorough as interpersonal and relational writers suggest it should be, there will have to be added a focus on how often patients' progress is limited by analysts' failures to translate what they know about their countertransference experience into helpful shifts in analytic relatedness. That is, the inclination to pursue self-interest must be included as a feature in any conception of a mutually subjective … two-person psychology of psychoanalysis. (p. 5)

Hirsch's intent, then, is to add texture to contemporary interpersonal and relational theory.

Hirsch addresses the ordinary wishes for emotional retreat, which underlies the analytic behavior he believes is problematic. He recognizes that the pull to disengage is inherently human, attributable to characterological issues, situational preoccupations, or ongoing transference-countertransference enactments. However, he is troubled by analysts' lack of persistence in their efforts to overcome resistance to sustained emotional contact. Too often, from Hirsch's point of view, analysts are inclined to take the easy way-out by coasting.

Although the reader may feel that he or she intuitively grasps the idea of “coasting,” the concept is not as fully elaborated as it might