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In this wonderful new book Sarah Usher, president of the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society, has integrated her depth of expertise in psychoanalysis with sophisticated principles of marital therapy. The result is a highly readable and invaluable guidebook, one that is uniquely accessible. One novel and very interesting feature of this book is the author's sharing of her process notes, written in italics throughout, giving her reflections on theory, transferences, and most particularly, her counter-transferences, in an immediate and intimate way. An added bonus is the New Yorker cartoons sprinkled liberally through the text, which she offers us for their humour (and they are funny!) and as a reminder of the ubiquity of the challenges layered into life as a couple — and as a couples therapist.
Usher intends this book for the experienced, psychoanalytically oriented therapist who has little or no training in marital therapy, but it also serves as a superb resource for those who have done this work for years, as this reviewer can testify. It does, indeed, as she suggests, “provide some calm in what can be turbulent waters, allowing the reader to connect with stories, feelings, and ideas” that she so generously shares with us. The writing is clear, energetic, and laced with deft humour and a willingness and capacity for reflection. The case descriptions are excellent: Usher's close following of the actual process in a moment-to-moment way makes us want to get to know and follow the stories of these very human couples.
The book is organized into seven well laid out chapters.
Chapter 1 begins with an overview of psychoanalytic principles, to orient the reader who may not be familiar with these concepts. Usher focuses first on the psychoanalytic perspective in which her work is grounded,