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This original and creatively conceived book is a joy to read, to enjoy, and to reflect on in terms of appreciating the very personal and human aspects of the 11 psychoanalytic writers and thinkers that Dr. Hunter has presented to us. In this book, Virginia Hunter, a distinguished clinician and author, with love, care, and wisdom, offers us interviews with these 11 analysts with particular attention to the interface of their personal histories, cultural, educational, and political experiences and views, and each of their own unique and differing psychoanalytic theoretical and clinical approaches. Dr. Hunter then presents the same clinical case presentation to the 11 analysts for their individual comments and reactions. She covers the waterfront in terms of the variety of psychoanalytic theoretical perspectives: ego psychologists (Jacob Arlow, Rudolph Ekstein, Robert Wallerstein), object relations theorists (John Bowlby, Peter Giovacchini, Frances Tustin), Kleinians (Hanna Segal), self psychologists (Arnold Goldberg, Ernest Wolf), and those whose theories perhaps might not be so easily labeled or categorized (Andre Green, Arnold Modell).
In introductory comments, Dr. Hunter discusses what she categorizes as the personal issues that subjectively influence psychoanalytic interpretation. She breaks these factors down into four useful subgroups: (1) transference to theory, (2) personal myths, (3) personal history, (4) cultural and sociopolitical influences. Items 1, 3, and 4 seem self-explanatory. Myth is a more complex area that Dr. Hunter lays out very well in a most original fashion.
My one extremely mild criticism of Dr. Hunter's work has to do with what I personally view as her excessive kindness in using the word “may” in her small section on “personal history” (pp. 11-12). “The analyst's choice of theory or even creation of theory may be affected by the analyst's personality and history… choice of technique may also be reflected in the place of history from which the