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The aim of the book Interpersonal psychoanalysis. A contemporary introduction is, according to its author Anna Maria Loiacono (a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Institute of Analytic Psychotherapy in Florence and Secretary General of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies), “to awaken the reader’s interest and curiosity” (p. 3) concerning the main elements of interpersonal psychoanalysis. Moreover, the author informs us from the first page of the book that interpersonal psychoanalysis is not merely interesting to her – she considers it a metaphorical place of birth for herself, a place where she sensed herself for the first time (p. 1).
The book consists of an introduction and 12 chapters, divided into three sections. These chapters present and discuss: the origins and historical development of interpersonal psychoanalysis, with an emphasis on the work of Harry Stack Sullivan and the concepts introduced by his ideas; basic theoretical and clinical issues (such as trauma, dissociation, countertransference, enactment, unformulated experience, disclosure) and clinical theory with extensive references to the work of contemporary authors; and the author’s personal position as an interpersonal analyst.
The extensive references to Sullivan’s life (chapter 2) aim, of course, to trace links between his life and his work, but also to connect “the social climate of the times and [Sullivan’s] psychological development” (p. 17), in line with the “sociocultural thread that crosses Sullivan’s entire opus” (p. 12). Moreover, the historical perspective is evident, first in the outline of the neo-Freudians’ quest and second in the description of the momentum in the American psychiatric community that favored the development of (interpersonal) psychoanalysis – the transition from asylum-centered to clinical psychiatry. This transition has been, as far as I know, the vehicle for the establishment of psychoanalysis as a clinical activity in many cases. This is be