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.
I am thankful for the opportunity of reading and reviewing this book. It is an unusual publication but not quite what would be anticipated by the title. It is not a treatise on intrapsychic and interpersonal concepts, although there may be minimal references to techniques and theorizing in those areas. It would be the impression of this reviewer that the title chosen was an afterthought. As a matter of fact, it is believed that the actual decision to write the book came as an afterthought and was not originally planned as such.
It had been the practice of Searles to make complete tape recordings of analytic sessions with patients he subsequently employed the same procedure in his dialogues with Langs. A good portion of the book deals with the taping of a complete session with a schizophrenic patient he had been seeing privately in his Washington, D. C. office for a period of about 18 years for several sessions a week. This patient, with the pseudonym Joan Douglas, was still residing at Chestnut Lodge (Little Lodge) but was permitted to make the trip unattended to Searles office. Treatment had started while Searles was still on the staff of Chestnut Lodge. Interestingly enough, after 25 years of analytic treatment, Joan Douglas, although allegedly improved, still actively hallucinated, was delusional, with her thinking dissociated and highly concretized. This reviewer found her reactions and her occasional verbal productions difficult to comprehend but, apparently, Searles, after so many years of contact with this patient, seemed to possess an uncanny grasp and understanding of her symbolic expressions, her hostility, resistance, transference and countertransference.
There is a question as to why the authors chose this particular session for taping with the hundreds available to them. Searles intimates, however, that it was more characteristic of this patient. The particular recording chosen was the one for Thursday, 9/22/77.
The references to Chestnut Lodge bring out i