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This issue of the Review of Books begins with the fourth installment in a series on The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott, curated by guest editors Philip Blumberg and Adrienne Harris. Volume 4—splendidly reviewed here by Ofra Eshel—covers several intensely productive years in Winnicott's writing life (1952-1955).
In his review of Steven Stern's Needed Relationships and Psychoanalytic Healing: A Holistic Relational Perspective on the Therapeutic Process, Peter Rudnytsky guides us through Stern's reflections on the contemporary psychoanalytic relationship. What does the contemporary psychoanalyst, he asks, have to offer patients who seek “a new relational experience”? Stern's book, Rudnytsky tells us, is “at once a down-to-earth guide to the perplexed analyst trying to ‘create a life together’ with his patient, the purpose of which ‘is to help the patient work out a better life,’ or even ‘have a life at all,’” and “a soaring commentary on our prevailing confusion of tongues after the collapse of the Freudian tower.” Rudnytsky spotlights the unique importance of analytic “fittedness” and reflects on how the work of analysis heals: “the irreducible mystery of the analytic encounter must be apprehended not only with the instruments of reason but also by our emotional participation, since only the two together can bring about the mutual transformation that is the very essence of healing.”
In her review of Robert Grossmark's The Unobtrusive Relational Analyst, Debra Neumann cites Tranströmer's “The Clearing” , quoted by Grossmark: “Deep in the forest there is an unexpected clearing which can be reached only by someone who has lost his way.” Neumann describes how Grossmark invites the reader to consider the stance of