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This is a complex, theoretically rich, and thought-provoking book full of detailed case examples and interesting quotations. Each chapter is shaped around two theorists who have contributed to the idea of a relational but unconscious field in which split off self-states of both client and therapist get projected onto each other. Atlas and Aron draw in many analytic writers, some more and some less well known in the intersubjective and relational world. They compare the nuanced differences and similarities between them and then outline their own assumptions and approaches. So rich is the theoretical material that there were times when I found it somewhat overwhelming. It was hard to take in all the details and as the book went on, I found myself tuning out at times and struggling to remember things that had been said earlier. That said, there were sections when I was thoroughly engaged because something resonated with my own experiences and theoretical touchstones. One example is the section in which the authors integrated the body into the shared field and insisted that the body should be included in the discussion of psychoanalysis (p. 137). From the position of a two-body psychology “it is crucial”, they said, “to emphasize that it is not only the mind that regulates psychological tensions, but our bodies, ourselves, are essential to the analytic task” (p. 136).
Another example of a theme that engaged me is the idea of co-suffering and Atlas and Aron's proposition that “the ethos of psychoanalysis be rooted not in neutrality and objectivity, but rather in acceptance and acknowledgement of mutual vulnerability” (p. 136). They cite Levinas and his claim that:
the Western proclivity to conceive the subject in terms of freedom and rationality mistakenly obscures and distorts our humanity by hiding the significance of human vulnerability and dependence, or what Freud called vulnerability. (p. 137)
I think, at the time I write this, that this has never been more salient.