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Some anthologies are collections for scholars only, perhaps owned by many but generally not read, relegated to the shelf even if viewed with a measure of reverence when glanced upon. This is not one of those. This is a collection of papers that work. These papers do. They teach, enlighten, fill gaps, and even amuse. And they are papers with a purpose. They correct the record, clarify, illustrate current debates while pointing out their roots in the past, and are excellent teaching tools for candidates, trainees, supervisors, teachers, and clinicians of a relational/interpersonal bent. Indeed, psychoanalysts of any persuasion would do well to include this body of work in their syllabi and library.
By definition, these papers revolve around the analyst as ineluctably present and implicated in the analytic dyad (a two-person process) and view the transference/countertransference matrix, the here-and-now experience, as the heart of the psychoanalytic process. They comprise a two-volume set, the present review focusing on the first volume: The Interpersonal Perspective in Psychoanalysis, 1960s–1990s: Rethinking Transference and Countertransference. Each volume is distinguished not only by time period but also by thematic subtitle, and both volumes are edited by Donnel B. Stern and Irwin Hirsch. It is no accident that Stern and Hirsch are themselves highly respected teacher/practitioners who know how to grow a contemporary psychoanalytic sensibility with
a firm grounding in interpersonal scholarship—their careful selection of papers for these volumes reflects their probing knowledge and command of this realm.
To begin the story of interpersonal psychoanalysis, Stern generously reveals his own initial ignorance of it. For most psychoanalysts (and ironically many non-M.D. analysts, myself included), there has been a curious scotoma, a phenomenon of not-knowing, a lack of awareness of seminal contributions from the interpersonal school. Truth be told, it was the dominance o