You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Between the covers of this misleadingly thin book lives a thick integration, an update of the motivational systems theory developed and honed over many years since Lichtenberg's (1989) Psychoanalysis and Motivation. These three beloved senior psychoanalysts—Lichtenberg, Lachmann, and Fosshage—together and individually, have extensively explored and contributed to many dimensions of the conceptual and clinical psychoanalytic literature, initially from both infant observation and clinical psychoanalytic observation and research. They further collaborated in their 1992 book, Self and Motivational Systems, again in 1996 in The Clinical Exchange: Techniques Derived From Self and Motivational Systems, and again in 2002 with their focus on communication in A Spirit
of Inquiry: Communication in Psychoanalysis. They have continued to integrate new developments within psychoanalysis and related research into their motivational systems, with an eye toward clinical application. One look at the references of their 2011 book, Psychoanalysis and Motivational Systems: A New Look confirms this assertion. As a central alternative to the classical dual drive theory of motivation in psychoanalysis, their new look opens up fresh possibilities in rethinking motivation.
In this well-organized book, Lichtenberg et al. (2011) bring together the fruits of their extensive study, along with their clinical experience. They bring us into the heart of the matter when they describe motivation in the book's introduction:
In our view, motivation involves a complex intersubjective process from which affects, intentions, and goals unfold. Motives are not simply givens; they emerge and are co-created and constructed in the developing individual embedded in a web of relationships with other individuals. How affects, intentions, and goals are both emergent and co-created, constructed