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In a brief introduction to his concise new textbook, The Texture of Treatment: On the Matter of Psychoanalytic Technique, Herbert Schlesinger tells us that the book is in the nature of a personal statement, and that it is not intended to be comprehensive or scholarly. He also informs us that he was trained in ego psychology, and is aware of many influential new ideas that have emerged over the years, but will not engage in scholarly disputes about theory or technique. Rather, he will rely mostly on his own clinical experience, using the same simple language he uses to explain to patients and students how he works, employing only a few higher-level concepts and terms he cannot avoid.
The book certainly lives up to these characterizations. It is relatively jargon-free, and has a hands-on, commonsensical, and practical tone. There is a unified and user-friendly quality that ref lects the author's understated but authoritative presence and personal style. Schlesinger's humble protestations to the contrary, however, the book is an elegant, sophisticated, and artful contemporary textbook of psychoanalytic technique, built solidly on traditional ego psychological concepts and values. It may not be for everyone, and for some teaching tasks it will not be enough, but this compact yet fully packed volume may fill a niche for contemporary psychoanalytic educators that no existing text quite achieves.
What niche might I have in mind? Perhaps you want an introductory textbook of psychoanalytic technique suitable for first-year candidates who are already experienced psychotherapists but mostly familiar with contemporary attachment and relational theory. Perhaps their minds seem to seize up or their eyes glaze over at the mention of terms such as conflict, defense, resistance, and neutrality, or at any suggestion that they need not demonstrate their empathic capacities or actively facilitate the patient's developmental strivings every time they see an opportunity. More to the point,