Curative Factors in Dynamic Psychotherapy: Edited by Samuel Slipp,  McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1982,  397 pp

This book once again documents the creativity of The American Academy of Psychoanalysis. In the Introduction, Samuel Slipp describes the book's history: it began with an invitation by Ian Alger to give a panel discussion about the curative factors of dynamic psychotherapy at the Meeting of The Academy in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1978.

The material from this panel discussion, together with some later additions, constitutes the body of this book. The questions presented to the experts sounded invitingly simple: What actually produces changes in the patient during treatment? What are the intangible yet powerful factors arising from the patient-therapist interaction?

After having read the 397 pages of this book, composed by 18 different researchers, one concludes that we have advanced in our knowledge considerably in recent years — but that we must definitely continue our research before we have an approximate answer. All 18 authors write clearly and avoid neologisms. The book — and this is my only criticism — does not include dynamic group therapy. It is conceivable that the answers will be found there. Therapists must have the courage to start thinking about a new and untrampled field like group therapy, which is so obviously beneficial for the patient, and, equally obvious, is based mostly on interaction, with all respect to the unconscious, transference, resistance, interpretation, etc.

Samuel Slipp's introduction reads like a chapter of conclusions and summaries written by a masterful educator.

Kernberg bases his presentation on Mahler's and Jacobson's research. He concludes that borderline patients suffer from developmental arrest. They have to learn to integrate part-objects into total objects in order to develop object constancy, with the aim of achieving a new self-concept. The main part of therapy is the interpretation of primary defenses.

Kohut and Wolf speak about the importance of the therapist's empathy. Only this enables the patients to become conscious of their d