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In his book on Winnicott, Rodman (2003) also considers Bion in an adversarial Los Angeles. Specifically, Rodman considers challenges by Kleinian and Kohutian thought to ego psychology as responsible for local tensions that then led to a multiplicity of schools. In contrast to the divisiveness of that climate, Rodman adds that “[t]hose who were drawn to Winnicott's work never formed into a coterie. This was the consequence of Winnicott's own attitude” (Rodman, 2003, p. 315).
The role of charisma as a cure or cause of rigidity may continue to be debated, yet differences between schools, Winnicott, and an attitude of openness all figure significantly in the work under review. Christine Kieffer's collection of papers entitled Mutuality, Recognition, and the Self: Psychoanalytic Reflections centers on challenges to the limits of a school that, like any school, may at times embody the rigidity of a coterie. Here, the reader does not journey to Los Angeles, but to Chicago, the land of Kohut, where Kieffer conducts psychoanalysis with individuals and groups. Kieffer, a faculty member of the Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis, describes a non-linear yet systematic path that has led to an assemblage of papers that traverses in order to illuminate links between object relations and self psychology. In keeping with Winnicott's democratic attitude, Kieffer sets her sights on an inclusive and critical integration through writing under the label of relational self psychologist. This volume does, in my opinion, succeed in its task to stand as a whole through the successful integration of divergent schools while exploring areas as diverse as intergenerational family dynamics and work with adults, children, individuals, and groups.
Although Winnicott with an open attitude is a significant part of her project, so are other object relational thinkers. Here, Kieffer works to make explicit the implicit links between the works of Guntrip and Fairbairn in Kohut's work. These links are illus