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This is an ambitious reference work, the very publication of which is an attempt to give Interpersonal psychoanalysis its rightful place among contemporary theories of analysis. The authors and editors state in their Introduction that the question What is Interpersonal psychoanalysis? has always been a difficult one to answer. Is it answered for us some 876 pages later? Somewhat
Although the work in this volume has been painstakingly carried out, with the authors making significant efforts towards achieving clarity, the reader may often feel overwhelmed. To say that the Handbook of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis is extensive in scope would be an understatement, for an attempt has been made here to discuss virtually every facet of analytic and therapeutic theory and technique-except perhaps for work in groups, an interesting omission from theorists so concerned with the social, interpersonal environment Laying out the broadest of boundaries is justified by the editors because “Interpersonal psychoanalysis is neither uniform nor unitary in its therapeutic or theoretical approach” The target audience extends from undergraduate students to psychoanalytic scholars and this also contributes to the impression that the book aspires to do too much.
Here is the editors' definition of Interpersonal psychoanalysis (spelled throughout with a capital I, while other theories are in lower case) It “involves a broadly relational metapsychology; an interactive conception of the intrapsychic … world; a clinical focus on the interpersonal and intersubjective field; a pluralistic sensibility that allows for a radical individuation of metapsychologies and clinical methodologies; an operationist perspective that endeavours to hold theoretical constructs close to empirical observation, and a