Difficulties in the Analytic Encounter: John Klauber,  Jason Aronson, New York, London, 1981,  221 pp.

This volume was apparently compiled at the request of the publishers from the author's publications in various European psychoanalytic journals. Each of the ten chapters and two appendices describes an aspect of the therapeutic situation, analytic technique, or himself that has troubled John Klauber. Unfortunately, he details his own concerns in a way that will intrigue only his own analyst and/or analytic institute. The introduction unabashedly begins “What one writes is primarily for oneself.” He seems a sincere enough fellow, and the book contains many thoughtful discussions of Strachey, Bion, Klein, Kris, and other more or less classical Freudian metapsychologists. He competently ponders classic analytic technique as possibly sadistic in its austerity; he agonizes over the difficulty of forming a personal psychoanalytic identity; he discusses the psychical roots of religion, too. In short, the book lacks a focus and occasionally seems somewhat puerile and sad as the author wrestles with classical Freudian structure. The book may be useful in the professional musings of an established analyst and/or in a course in classical psychoanalytic technique.