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As a recently retired, psychoanalytic psychotherapist trained in the 1970s, it is a pleasure to endorse Sandra Buechler’s Psychoanalytic Reflections Training and Practice. Buechler’s essays, which span the late 1980s to the present, are a generous, evocative exploration of how analytically trained therapists’ clinical identity is developed and how well-seasoned clinicians’ signature styles get forged over time.
For anyone considering analytic training, those in midcourse practice, or those teaching or consulting with psychotherapists, Psychoanalytic Reflections is a go-to, must read resource and reminder, of what goes into making a psychotherapist good at her job, and what she may expect, and learn to tolerate, in the waves and shoals of clinical practice. In addition, Psychoanalytic Reflections offers a nostalgic, affirmative, valedictory retrospective for any psychotherapist who has surfed the swells of psychodynamic practice and thinking over the course of the past 50 years.
Exquisitely referenced, and delivered with a poet’s knack for choosing just the right words to highlight nuanced concepts, this volume delivers nuggets of wisdom from familiar theorists that smoothly integrate Buechler’s well-ripened experiences as clinician, teacher, and supervisor. Elements of a sentimental journey intersect seamlessly with frank discussions about the hopes and ideals candidates bring to the profession, the power and pitfalls of Institute training programs, and the riches and hazards both trainees and mentors encounter along the way. Overall,
Buechler shines a broad beam of light on the highs and lows of pursuing, and practicing, the “subtle art . . . of this glorious, gratifying career.”
Psychoanalytic Reflections is divided into two sections: “Training” and “Practice.” In “Training,” Buechler articulates the passion and vulnerability candidates bring to the exceptionally personal, intellectually rigorous training required of analytic work. Idealization of the profession i