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This volume is an excellent collection of papers by leading psychoanalytic researchers, with commentaries highlighting the implications of the research for clinical practice. The volume, which initially appeared as a supplement to the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association in 1993, contrasts with other important psychoanalytic research collections, such as those edited by Dahl, Kächele & Thomä (1988) and Miller, Luborsky, Barber & Docherty (1993), in including the areas of developmental psychiatry and psychology, as well as treatment research.
In general, we may see this volume as a testimony to the scientific advances of the psychoanalytic field, beyond the early experimental studies of psychoanalytic concepts, which are not included in this book, and also beyond the large sample outcome studies included here. With the new understanding of modern science, to which Emde refers, and the advances in psychological methodology included here, the papers as a group show how meanings and motives, which are central to psychoanalysis, may become objects of investigation in an empirical scientific field.
While the volume, with its broadly ranging selection of papers, necessarily has some aspects of a handbook or encyclopaedia, this review will focus on what I see as the central and shared themes. As Kernberg points out in his discussion, the focus on outcome was the domain of the first generation of psychoanalytic researchers while the emphasis on process is the domain of the second. The editors may be said to be representing a third generation, working towards the integration of developmental and treatment perspectives in an overall psychoanalytic science. I will discuss the papers from this integrative perspective, rather than following the—somewhat puzzling—order of sections in the book. I regret that this brief review cannot do justice to the many original and thought-provoking ideas represented in the individual chapters, each of which could potentially be the