From the Editors

In this section we encounter personal reflections from analysts about their analytic selves. We all have yearned for a glimpse of the inner workings of the mind of the analyst, both within and beyond the walls of the consulting room. How do analysts determine what to say, what to interpret, when to wait tactfully, when to sally forth? How do they cope with their own feelings of loneliness, disappointment, pleasure, anger, and pain? In her review of Robert Winer and Kerry Malawista's Who's Behind the Couch, a collection of personal and often intimate interviews—of psychoanalysts, by psychoanalysts, from around the globe—Aisha Abbasi shares her marvel and delight in being able to engage, as a reader, in a compelling and thought-provoking set of conversations. In many of the interviews, Abbasi discovers gems that illuminate something in a new way or bring important questions to mind. Her review brings the reader into dialogue with the analysts interviewed and with the editors who assembled the book. In these pages, Abbasi tells us, we will be able to discover the analyst behind the couch: “The interviews collected here provide inspiring insights into how and why these analysts became the analysts they are today, and how they help their patients.” The conversations in this book are fascinating, engaging, and an important pathway to understanding—as Winer and Malawista suggest in their title—“the heart and mind of the psychoanalyst.”

Sybil Houlding's review of Stephanie Brody's Entering Night Country: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Loss and Resilience offers a different view of the analyst's internal experience, this one through the lens of loss and the transience of life. Houlding offers a close reading of Brody's intimate reflection on loss, mortality, and the art of psychoanalysis. In her volume, Brody explores the power of analytic work to create boundaries within which patient and analyst can risk a deep exploration of intimacy. Ho