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Dr. Leo Rangell, perhaps the pre-eminent living psychoanalyst in the world, has written and presented over 450 articles and 7 books. He has been president of the American Psychoanalytic Association twice, president of the International Psychoanalytic Association, and currently the Honorary President of the IPA since 1997-a post held previously only by Ernest Jones, Heinz Hartman, and Anna Freud. In his latest book (and we hope not his last) he has produced a “tour de force” which may perhaps be considered the most important psychoanalytic book since Fenichel's two volume set on the Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis in 1945. Rangell has practiced, lectured, and lead for six decades. He has witnessed the evolution of psychoanalysis through the second half of it's 100 year history. He has personally known and collaborated with all the great personalities who have crafted the field over the past 50 years.
In this opus, his journey through the field of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theory is described in two phases. The first phase encompasses the 30 years in which psychoanalysis reached its ascendancy in the United States, primarily organized around classical ego psychology. The second phase begins in the late 1960's and encompasses the next 30 years in which the field branched into many directions through many schools to the point of loosing theoretical cohesion.
Rangell postulates through many examples that when individuals and groups worked well socially and politically together then clinical practice and it's derivate underlying theory progress energetically. But he also describes other experiences in which individuals' personal dissent from existent practice into new schools; is often built around a charismatic leader. Rangell repeatedly states his respect for authentic, creative, advances in the field, that add to the existing practice and theory.