You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The contributing dynamics between the two people involved in the intimate relationship of intersubjective psychoanalysis are eagerly explored throughout Chris Jaenicke's newest book, Change in Psychoanalysis, Volume 34 in the Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series. As I complete the final chapter, I am reminded of the Broadway musical Wicked and the lyrics from the poignant song “For Good,” in which Glinda and Elphaba proclaim without hesitation, “But I know I'm who I am today because I knew you…”-and so it can be said by both the patient and the analyst. As Jaenicke notes, “In describing the work with a patient, we are implicitly or explicitly describing ourselves” (p. 98), and so he does in his writing.
Change in Psychoanalysis, Jaenicke's reflections on the process of the therapeutic relationship, represents a valuable contribution to further exploration of the intersubjective field. “In the end it is the nature of the encounter between two human beings that counts” (p. 178) concludes Jaenicke in the book's final sentence. His journey to that conclusion validates it beautifully. Jaenicke's seemingly effortless ability to reveal himself to the reader as well as his patients allows us a glimpse into the healing process of the intersubjective approach to treatment.
Jaenicke devotes much of the book to three premises that he believes are central to the process of change: “first, the primacy of mutual influencing; second, the primacy of subjectivity; and, as a consequence, the third premise that in psychotherapy the process of change is co-determined and so we can say that both participants are changed” (p. 33).
Jaenicke first addresses mutual influences, that is, the bidirectionality of psychoanalysis. He reviews the significant and exciting findings that infant research and neuroscience have contributed to our understanding of the directionality of influences. “Neuroscience supports the contention that human beings are constantly in the state of mutually influencing…” (p.