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As the title of this book suggests, its main theme and focus concerns the “shared” nature of analytic work between therapist and client: “Neither therapist nor patient alone can know what is best or what is needed. This is jointly discovered as the therapeutic process unfolds” (p. 179). The notion of mutual reciprocity is not a new idea, and Mr. Casement readily acknowledges the influence of people like R.J. Langs (author of The Listening Process), D. Winnicott, W. Bion and many others. What I think is different about the theoretical concepts and ways of working as outlined in this book, relates not to their uniqueness, but to the fact that the author has managed to bring them together so skilfully and sensitively to produce a coherent, systematic way of clinically appraising oneself, one's client and the interplay between the two.
Mr. Casement repeatedly alerts us to the danger of forcing clients into a theoretical or interpretive straitjacket; and of the value of being able to tolerate “not knowing”, or of “knowing” but learning to wait until the client is receptive to, and able to assimilate, what we have to impart to them. He also points out the role the client plays in this “knowing” and the ways in which the therapist can become maximally aware and receptive to the therapeutic “promptings” from the client: “what is not always acknowledged is that patients also read the unconscious of the therapist” (p. 3).
I find the notion that our clients “monitor” our therapeutic input immensely reassuring. It is a foil to the therapist becoming too omnipotent and the therapy becoming too one way and one-sided. It also means that there are always — or should be — three “people” in the consulting room: the client, the therapist and the “co-therapist” — namely that aspect of the client which is actively engaged in the therapeutic process alongside the therapist. As the author points out:
It is no longer adequate to think of the analyst as the one who observes and interprets, and