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This book is an intelligent and meaningful effort to synthesize Ego Psychology, British Object Relations, and American Relational Theory around the subject of hope. In the well-argued view of the author, the combined or competing hopes of the analyst and analysand influence to a significant extent the nature of the therapeutic action in analysis.
Dr. Cooper is a training analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. His writing displays a comprehensive knowledge of the psychoanalytic literature of our age. He has produced a work that would appeal to anyone who is, like himself, a psychanalytic theory “junkie.”
The book is divided into four sections and ten chapters. In the introductory chapter Dr. Cooper develops his concept of “Objects of Hope.” He argues that analysts are not, in fact, blank screens, but instead, bring to the dyadic relationship wishes and hopes for the analysand. These hopes are primarily about what may be accomplished in analysis, such as the ability to explore the inner mind, to tolerate intense affects, and to live with ambiguity and limits. These hopes and wishes not only depend on the inner world of the analyst, but also the psychoanalytic perspective from which they practice and participate. Similarly,