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Lawrence Brown makes the case that intersubjectivity has been embedded in psychoanalysis ever since Freud introduced the idea of the unconscious as a way to understand human behavior. Since then, analysts have gotten caught up in differences that result in internecine wars about one-person versus two-person psychologies, classical versus relational approaches, and so forth. In the process, they have lost sight of commonalities.
In this book, Brown focuses on the contributions of Freud, Klein, and Bion. The book is organized into ten chapters and an Introduction beginning with Freud's discovery of transference and the idea that the analyst uses his own unconscious to “hear” the patient's unconscious. Identifying how this communication takes place is the subject of this book. While Freud's “DNA” (Brown's term to describe the core tenets of its originator) is central to each branch of psychoanalysis, it “morphed” as its practitioners migrated to different parts of the world. Brown takes the reader on a complex geographical and intellectual journey that begins in Vienna with Freud and spreads through Europe and South America. Its practitioners grapple with transference, unconscious communication, and what transpires between analyst and analysand to bring to the surface the innermost fantasies and thoughts of each. As analysis matures, analysts are increasingly willing to acknowledge that they must make use of their own (countertransference) experiences to understand their patients. Freud's initial admonition that the analyst “must turn his own unconscious like a receptive organ towards the transmitting unconscious of the patient” is operationalized, if you will, by the contributions of Klein and Bion and those who are influenced by them.
With Brown as a guide, it is such a delight to take what might otherwise be a dauntingly complex and arcane journey into the intricacies of this subject. However, the author is so intimately knowledgeable about the development of the i