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Beginning Analysis presents a robust and original attempt at using qualitative research methods to investigate the processes and core dynamics underlying initial interviews in psychoanalysis. This book begins by providing a detailed foundation of a research project conducted as part of the European Psychoanalytical Federation's Ten-Year European Scientific Initiative, in which the Working Party on Initiating Psychoanalysis (WPIP) was created to investigate “the specific dynamics of preliminary interviews, how psychoanalysts work with them, and what it is in these dynamics that leads a potential patient to enter full analysis (or not)” (p. 4). Written by an international team of eight senior psychoanalysts and members of the WPIP, the book compiles the work of hundreds of psychoanalysts who contributed their time and attention to investigating case material from initial psychoanalytic interviews. Analysis of the results presented here not only challenged the authors' initial hypotheses, but also led to the creation of novel theoretical concepts that encourage further exploration, research, and reflection. As stated by the authors, it is crucial to understand how psychoanalysts really work, not simply how we would like to think they work (p. 3). I believe the authors have achieved this goal through their detailed, methodologically sound, and thoroughly elaborated work. Reading this book has encouraged me, as a clinician-in-training, to consider the unconscious dynamics underlying initial interviews and overcome my apprehension regarding initial sessions. Through their description of clinical case materials, the authors have normalized the experience of uncertainty that accompanies the initiation of a therapeutic relationship and highlighted the importance of openness and