You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In this volume, Werner Bohleber offers one of the most thoughtful and comprehensive discussions I have read of modern developments in our field. The book is an essential addition to the library of any psychoanalyst who seeks to understand new insights into our field and to place them in context in a fair, coherent, and intelligent manner.
The book, translated from German by four different scholars, is divided into three sections that reflect Bohleber's primary research interests: The Intersubjective Paradigm in Psychoanalysis and Late Modernity; Trauma, Memory, and Historical Context; and Psychoanalysis of Ideological Destructivity. Each section is filled with a wealth of detail about the philosophical and psychoanalytic developments that have contributed to the author's evolving viewpoint.
The first section offers a lucid introduction and analysis of intersubjective theories, which emphasize the reciprocal influence between patient and analyst. Bohleber appreciates the intention of these theories to develop concepts about the unconscious interactions and enactments that occur in the analytic dyad. He particularly values the intersubjectivists' effort to capture crucial aspects of the experience of analytic interaction not articulated in the concept of transference: “Concepts of encounter and the relation of the self to the Other allow for the introduction of an excess of meaning into a theory of the therapeutic relationship, something that cannot be subsumed by the analysis of transference and countertransference, but which only emerges as present experience, and which must then be caught up with verbally, though the attempt can never fully succeed” (pp. 21-22). Bohleber contends that this new emphasis must, however, be conceptually placed alongside the separate but still crucial analysis of transference and countertransference. How to balance this dual focus technically is not addressed; one wishes that it had been, with clinical examples.