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I am not a proponent of postmodernist philosophy, nor do I presume to understand fully the impact of these ideas on psychoanalysis. Nevertheless, I feel confident in concluding that anyone turning to this book for a thoughtful critique of the role of postmodern thinking in psychoanalysis will be disappointed. Dr. Held's appreciation of the epistemological position of postmodernism is simplistic, and her proposal for a “modest realism” in contrast to what she describes as the “anti-realist” stance of “narrative therapists” is naive. Dr. Held is described as a professor of psychology who practices psychotherapy and who “has trained psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers.” She is not a psychoanalyst, and the few statements she makes about psychoanalysis reflect little appreciation for the impact that postmodernist thinking has had—for better or worse—on our field. In fact, she references only a few analytic thinkers (principally Roy Shafer); most of the authors she cites seem to be nonanalytic psychotherapists.
Dr. Held's premise is that the influence of postmodernist philosophy and what she terms “narrative therapy” in psychotherapy has been pernicious, that it may lead to unethical practices, and that the denial of “reality” in the practice of “narrative therapy” is unnecessary and false. She purports to demonstrate that postmodernist “narrative therapists” are “at least implicitly adopting a modest realism, one which makes certain limited truth, or reality claims” that “transcend the particularities of any one individual, situation, moment, or context,” and that the “movement undermines, or contradicts, its own self-proclaimed anti-realism” (p. 24). She devotes her first chapter to an exposition of postmodernism but seems to have little acquaintance with the important thinkers who have shaped this epistemology, citing primarily secondary sources. She seems to feel that the thrust of postmodernism in psychotherapy is mainly concerned with the problem of cons