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Hirsch, Iannuzzi, and Levenson are to be congratulated on this fine piece of work. It is more than I expected. Yes, of course, this interview is what such interviews usually are: it offers Levenson the opportunity to reflect on the field as a whole, interpersonal psychoanalysis in particular, and his own major contribution. But the interview accomplishes a good deal more than that. It doubles as some morphed form of scholarship. Hirsch and Iannuzzi are wonderfully well informed about Levenson's work, and they ask questions that allow Levenson to open up his thinking in ways that I am sure will surprise many of his readers. For his part, Levenson is articulate, collaborative, engaging, and forthcoming. The result is a document that, despite its length, grips us throughout.
This interview is the only time Levenson has ever tried to convey the sweep of his thought over the course of his career, and considering what we find out as he talks, it is high time for such a survey. Levenson's thought has developed over the years, and in ways that may not be obvious to his readers until they read this exegesis. For anyone who really wants to understand Levenson, this exchange has immediately become a necessary complement to his more formal published work.
But the biggest surprise in this interview is not its coverage of Levenson's ideas. No, it is Levenson's shockingly (yes, shockingly) inaccurate assessment of the impact of his own work. I can hardly believe that Levenson has so little idea of his own influence. He does say that he has always thought that The Fallacy of Understanding (1972) alerted Merton Gill, Lawrence Friedman, and some other prominent Freudians that interpersonal psychoanalysis was worth attending to. But Levenson also says