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Fred Busch wants to open minds, from behind the couch and from the page, to the possibilities that careful attending offers. In his new book, Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind: A Psychoanalytic Method and Theory, he resumes and extends his elucidation of the efficacy of an ego psychological perspective on our work, bearing the standard for a theory that many of late eschew. In particular, Busch demonstrates the usefulness of Paul Gray's “close process monitoring” technique as a cornerstone of his clinical orientation and asserts its centrality in focusing on what we need to know to bring about psychoanalytic change. While his position is not an easy one to occupy at this moment in the history of psychoanalysis, he does so with clarity and equanimity, neither engaging in au courant battles nor dismissing alternative contributions, while attempting to highlight ways in which his approach is integrative. Indeed, here-as in his clinical work-he asserts that there are matters overlooked and matters to be looked at if one both sustains a commitment to process and resists the seductive pull toward deep interpretation as the end-all, be-all for a truly psychoanalytic experience. Further, Busch does so with crediting his history as a developmentalist, psychologist, and, as I discovered, former baseball player. Regarding the last, as Busch says several times in his book, “more about that later.”
Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind is aptly subtitled: “A” Psychoanalytic Method and Theory, thus belying any misunderstanding of Busch's intent. He does not declare that he knows how psychoanalysis ought to be practiced, a position all too often projected onto those who ask us to look at our pasts again; indeed, what Gray would have viewed as a superego resistance. Rather, in this iteration of his thinking-his third book to date on ego psychology in clinical technique-Busch avers that he is open to integrating alternative theoretical positions into his own and that his work has benefited fro