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A Fresh Look at Psychoanalytic Technique is a fifteen-chapter collection of Fred Busch's most important papers published in the last three decades. I think it will become must reading in all psychoanalytic institutes, and it should be recommended as well to students and practitioners of psychotherapy. The first thought that crossed my mind upon reviewing this excellent book, was “I wished I had read it when I was a Candidate,” but that was long before this text was written.
As in his previous books, Busch shows a vast knowledge of the psychoanalytic literature written by authors who have contributed, in different ways, to forging the technique of contemporary ego psychology. In his endorsement of the book on its back cover, Elias de Rochas Barros deemed this book “a truly inspiring voice… tracking down crucial ideas across regions and cultures.” Busch consistently reaches elegant compromises between his understanding of some practices and the expression of critical ideas. I found particularly illuminating his explanation of the differences between Arlow & Brenner, and Gray's positions (p. 84).
Busch summarizes his technical conclusions as follows:
While I try to consider many levels of meaning, and think of myself as a theoretical pluralist with respect to understanding meaning, the considerations uppermost in my thinking are (1) the patient's capacity to think about, integrate, and internalize interventions from a perspective that is accessible to him or her; (2) how to contribute to the analysand's increasing participation in the process; and (3) privileging the patient's experience of his or her thoughts and feelings. (p. 99)
The subsequent practical step is the implementation of these principles. How does the analyst assess reliably the completeness of the patient's experiences? What are solid enough evidences? How can the analyst facilitate the recovery/production of these? What clinical surfaces are optimally workable? What kind of analytic interventions are less