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Sanford Shapiro's Talking with Patients is best read as the personal account of a dedicated psychoanalyst's odyssey through the complexities of the theory and practice of psychoanalysis.
Shapiro posits that psychoanalysis, like art, requires both precise technique and intuition. Based on his personal experience of analytic training, Shapiro suggests that classical psychoanalytic education encourages “proper” technique to the detriment of creative intuition. The challenge he poses is to strike a balance between analytic discipline and spontaneity. I doubt that anyone would disagree with this proposition. However, when he suggests that classical Freudian theory inhibits creativity and self psychological theory promotes creativity, I find his argument less than compelling.
In a number of brief chapters, Shapiro presents concise summaries of self psychology, selfobject theory, and intersubjectivity theory in order to explain the ways in which these theories have, for him, shed new light on the analytic interaction, have loosened the constrictions of