A review of La tradicion interpersonal: Perspectiva social y cultural en psicoanalisis [The Interpersonal Tradition: A Socio-Cultural Perspective in Psychoanalysis]: edited by Alejandro Avila Espada. Madrid, Spain: Agora Relacional, 2013.

Introduction

This book is an important contribution introducing the American interpersonal tradition to the Latin-American and Spanish-speaking psychoanalytic communities who have had little or no exposure to this literature. Espada is a teacher of psychoanalysis in Madrid and first president of Spain's International Association of Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. His comprehensive Spanish text offers a methodical review of each of the pioneers and later key contributors to the Interpersonal perspective. Each author is introduced and contextualized by helpful personal biographies of the major players. A brief introduction by Margaret Crastnopol sets the stage. Chapters by different authors introduce the work of pivotal interpersonal writers ranging from Sullivan and Fromm through to Levenson, Bromberg, Stern, and Ehrenberg and translations of key contemporary interpersonal papers by Donnel Stern, Darlene Ehrenberg, and Sandra Buechler are also included.

As the book's title suggests, Espada sees the Interpersonal tradition through the lens of its sociocultural milieu. As a result, he adds his own stamp to this work by bridging the development of the interpersonal tradition in North America with parallel writings from Latin America that often carry a social-historical and group-related inflection. In particular, the author emphasizes the influences of Enrique Pichon-Riviere, Heinrich Racker, and Willy and Madeleine Baranger from the southern hemisphere and one chapter of the book is devoted to their work. This compilation of Interpersonal theory and review of its developments and main contributors will be familiar to many American readers. More important, though,

I imagine this collection by Espada and his colleagues will be especially illuminating, thought provoking, and inspiring to psychoanalysts in the Spanish-speaking world, including Spain itself, where exposure to the Interpersonal psychoanalytic approach has been limited, at best. Many will be eng