David Scharff and Elizabeth Palacios's edited volume is the outcome of a most creative endeavor—couple and family psychoanalysts from around the world assembing to explore a range of new ideas on a project still in its early stages—the application of psychoanalytic concepts to the study and treatment of the couple dyad and the family constellation.

What is perhaps the greatest virtue of this book is its international scope. While so much of the literature we read as analysts is ensconced in our immediate culture, Scharff and Palacios have placed cultural differences squarely at the center of this collection. Although we know that these differences are important considerations in clinical work, perhaps nowhere are they more important than in work with families and couples. Cultures vary in how the family is structured and shaped over time, including its values, expectations, what is normative and what is not, how the generations relate, what are acceptable, even expected influences by one generation on another, versus what is exceptional. Each of these