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Educators without formal training at an analytic institute may find it challenging to introduce and integrate psychoanalytic ideas and techniques into mental health curricula. A number of factors contribute to this difficulty, including students' need for a semantic foundation allowing their comprehension of psychoanalytic jargon; the many distinctive theoretical approaches that historically have been shrouded in conflict; a paucity of evidence-based studies demonstrating efficacy; and the lack of a model of therapeutic action that is sufficiently user-friendly for the larger mental health community (Yalof 2015). In the short volume Freedom to Choose, Jack and Kerry Kelly Novick begin to address many of these issues as they present their novel approach to introducing psychoanalytic theory and technique, drawing on their experience as researchers, theoreticians, clinicians, teachers, and supervisors. Published in 2016, Freedom to Choose introduces students interested in clinical psychoanalysis to the Novicks' synthesis of their evolving ideas over five decades into a systematized approach to contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice.
Influenced by the field of developmental psychopathology, which studies normal and abnormal development, risk and resilience factors, and the concept of adaptive and maladaptive outcomes, the authors describe two general pathways of self-regulation by which individuals can fulfill the basic “need for homeostasis and mastery, which in turn underlie a sense of self and self-esteem” (p. 3). Their use of the term “self-regulation,” rather than more psychoanalytic phrases such as “affective regulation,” facilitates the integration of psychoanalytic ideas into the wider universe of mental health (Kopp 1982; Cicchetti, Ackerman, and Izard 1995). Self-regulation has become a particular focus in the field of developmental psychology over the last twenty-five years and is now considered an early childhood marker for later successes (Montroy e