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This book might well be titled The Selected Papers of Hyman Spotnitz. Written over a thirty-year period from 1947 to the present, these papers, while updated in some instances, provide an orientation to the development of a body of theory and its clinical applications in the understanding and treatment in individual and group psychotherapy of the preoedipal disorders to which the author has devoted a lifetime of professional study.
The book is organized into six sections. Part I, under the heading “Latent Emotional Processes,” presents the concepts of emotional induction between parent and child and between therapist and patient. The therapist-patient interaction is formulated with Spotnitz' characteristic emphasis upon the therapist's capacity to emotionally experience the patient's impulses toward instinctual discharge. A noteworthy paper titled “The Maturational Interpretation,” carries the prescription that an interpretation is rendered not primarily to give the patient objective understanding of himself, but to achieve the therapeutically desirable anticipated response. Another key concept presented is that of emotional immunization via the “toxoid response.”