Never Stop Learning: A Review of “Making Sense Together”, 2^nd Edition by Peter Buirski, Pamela Haglund, and Emily Markley,  Rowman and Littlefield, 2020, ISBN 9781538141922

I first read Making Sense Together nearly a decade ago when I began my journey into the practice of what Buirski, Haglund, and Markley call the “intersubjective sensibility” (2020). While the book establishes in the first edition preface that it is written for students, as I reread the second edition, I was struck by how wonderful a gift this book is for both beginning and seasoned practitioners alike. Buirski et al. (2020) offer their readers a masterclass in communicating big ideas with minimal psychoanalytic jargon. This approach makes the chapters not only easy to read, but effective in bridging the gap between the language we often use in our professional communities and the language we use to speak with our patients. This text feels much closer to the latter which is one factor that contributes greatly to its effectiveness as a teaching tool.

Outside of its use as a teaching tool and its effectiveness at communicating the core ideas of intersubjective systems theory, one of the greater accomplishments of Making Sense Together is its ability to remind the reader how essential the attitude of being a lifelong learner is to our practice of psychotherapy and psychoanalytic treatment. There is no “done” when it comes to learning to be a therapist or psychoanalyst and Buirski et al. (2020) remind us that this is a gift: “Unlike other professions or occupations, we psychotherapists are so fortunate to be in a profession where we don’t remain set in our ways but continue to evolve and grow” (p. xii). It is a reminder of how we need to change throughout our careers, and Making Sense Together aspires to embody this conviction. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in intersubjectivity and/or ever found themselves at one time or another uninspired or stagnant in their clinical work.

The text is clear from the beginning that it sets out to explain the essential theoretical and philosophical ideas that form intersubjective systems theory as established