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This is an excellent book. It summarises the current thinking about self-analysis in a way that is interesting and comprehensive and opens doors for the future development of self-analysis.
Among the virtues of the book are the extent of its comprehension and the care of its integration. In many ways I learned from it. And I enjoyed it.
Along the way, the book addresses the following topics: Can self-analysis be done? If it can be done, what method or methods work best? Is there reason to favour spontaneous goals over systematic goals? or the reverse? And should any method of research be favoured?
It helps that the goals of self-analysis are appreciated by a careful editor (James W. Barron) and by more than a dozen thoughtful and imaginative contributors. I regret that not all the contributors are recognised in the brief descriptions that follow.
The Bernadis (of Uruguay) describe the wide-spread importance of ‘assumptions’ that influence the conduct of life, including the life of a psychoanalyst. Using quotes, they described the importance in any analysis of the wish to be analysed, and they see self-analysis as being ‘favourable to processes of change and revision’.
McLaughlin states that he has learned from patients who ‘stretch and burden us’. He lists stimuli that push him into periods of self-analysis. They include sleepiness, boredom, excessive intervening or (from Poland) ‘heightened psychic tension’. On the other hand ‘transference sanctuaries’, where one can ‘free float’, encourage self-analysis.
Smith employs the two-way exchange between analyst and patient whereby each learns from the other. He agrees with Gedo and Schwaber about the importance of the analysis of the patient’s perception of the analyst.
Wolf differs from several contributors in seeing transference as largely demands from the patient. He and Gedo are prompted more from their patients than from themselves. Gedo notes that it takes powerful forces in self-analysis to overcome strong resistances.
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