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I really enjoyed this most recent book written by that iconoclastic analyst, John Gedo. Gedo, an experienced clinician now in his twilight years, has attempted to theoretically integrate what he has found therapeutically useful (and noxious) over his 40-year analytic career As an analysand of Maxwell Gitelson and graduate of the orthodox Chicago Institute, he became a fellow traveller with Kohut and later Goldberg, although he is now a vocal critic of self psychology He is a strong advocate of the position that clinical data should drive theory.
When I once asked a research chemistry professor what he enjoyed about his work, he said, “I just love devising as many theoretical compounds as possible Whether they are of any practical use or not matters little” This is also a theoretical attitude of many contemporary psychoanalytical writers By using a basic grid of drive or self theory, they can elaborate upon the basic notions that pathology arises from paternal seduction and phallic conflict, or alternately from maternal failure and empathic deficit This leaves one with innumerable theoretical possibilities but relatively unproductive, repetitive formulations Gedo does not dismiss the potential usefulness of classical conceptions, nor is he myopic about the contributions of his contemporaries He wants analysts to expand their potential for awareness and intervention, regardless of their usual model of psychic functioning or theoretical alliance. Gedo highlights the role of the analyst's subjectivity (not just countertransference) and the usefulness of noninterpretive interventions, which he classifies according to the analysand's regressive or progressive condition Gedo sees that a spectrum of interventions is necessary to identify and master the specific ego and cognitive defects—for which he has coined the term apraxias—as well as the often disregarded requirement to stimulate our analysands' self-inquiry within the analysis
Languages of Psychoanalysis has as its aim