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Hoffman's seminal contributions to the literature on psychoanalytic process spring from his efforts to make sense of the many contradictions that arise in the paradox of a treatment that requires detachment and intimate involvement for success. This book provides the reader with the origins and elaboration of his unique contributions. It is a collection of previously published papers (seven of ten chapters) and an effort to integrate his earlier and current thinking. In this book, Hoffman also moves to place his ideas on the dialectic of the analytic process within a framework of postmodern thinking. As a practising analyst, I find Hoffman's observations on the analytic process fresh, provocative and quite compelling. However, his latest work assumes extensive knowledge of existential philosophy and a postmodern perspective on the part of the reader. As he moved to integrate these observations into the larger, philosophical context. I was intrigued but this material became quite dense, more complex and less relevant to my work as an analyst. However, even in these difficult chapters, readers will welcome Hoffman's accessible writing style and evident clinical acumen.
Hoffman, along with Merton Gill, developed what was originally called the social-constructivist