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Developmental perspectives in child psychoanalysis and psychotherapy is published within the Relational Perspectives Book Series. Bonovitz and Harlem are both linked to the journal Psychoanalytic Dialogues which, since its creation in the 1990s, has been a clear voice for relational psychoanalysis. It could be argued that the watershed book by Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) facilitated this strand of psychoanalysis which prioritises an interest in mutuality and intersubjectivity. Here Bonovitz and Harlem bring together senior clinicians from Europe, UK and North America to present how the essential new developments in relational theory, infant, attachment and brain research impact on psychoanalytic work with children. I suspect that not all of the contributors would agree with each other wholeheartedly – the use of countertransference material for example is diverse and rich, some endorse a traditional use whilst others eschew interpretation of it. The detailed clinical material is, however, a treat in itself.
The book is divided into four sections, beginning with an exploration of the relationship between research from infant development and clinical practice. A recurring theme is the manner in which children develop the capacity to ‘be with’ the other. In his erudite opening paper Bruce Reis brings together the infant research of Daniel Stern and the phenomenological philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy and others to delve into the very nature of ‘being’. Reis stresses the importance of coming to know oneself through the experience of being known by another; it is crucial, therefore, that the analyst has a capacity to ‘be-with the patient’. The analyst must endeavour to live through the often fragile and intense emotional processes occurring between them:
Change, I suggested, was not a function of mutative interpretation or a knowing about what had occurred in the patient’s past, but rather an intersubjective experience at the limits of understanding. (Reis, p. 21)
Barbara K