Self-Agency in Psychotherapy: Attachment, Autonomy and Intimacy by Jean Knox. Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology (Editors: A. Schore and D. Siegal). Published by  Norton, New York and London, 2011;  246 pp; £25.00 hardback.

If any theoretical body of work such as psychoanalysis is sealed off from other fields of study, it can become internally consistent but arid and lifeless. Because it is so hard to challenge a system of thought from the inside, it is imperative that we open our minds to the findings from other allied fields of study. Interesting things can happen when traditionally independent disciplines are placed alongside each other, and this book is a fine example of that approach. Jean Knox has done an impressive amount of work exploring, not only her own field of psychoanalytic thinking, but also those of other close disciplines, and she presents us with her findings, thoughts and conclusions from that study. This makes for a challenging read for, like any good book, it makes one think.

Knox argues convincingly that the findings from research in interpersonal neurobiology and developmental studies lead to the conclusion that it is from the infant's early relational experience with key attachment figures that a sense of self-agency, and of self, emerges. Self-agency is defined as ‘the experience that we can influence our physical and relational environment, that our own actions