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Despite a title that suggests a discussion of methods of intervention other than interpretation, the focus of this book is on theory rather than on technique. Gedo believes that departures from classical technique are already accepted, and that they require corresponding changes in underlying theory.
Gedo narrowly defines interpretation as “statements that translate hitherto unconscious material into discursive language.” Thus it is a technical innovation, for example, to explore with a patient how he might arrange to pay for treatment because such a discussion is about overt behavior rather than unconscious material.
In another example, Gedo describes how he “responded only insofar as the analysand indicated… to control overstimulation… and to regulate tension.” Biological needs such as the need to return to tolerable levels of stimulation are, then, beyond interpretation because they are beyond the reach of subjectivity and introspection. Thus, the patient may require pacification (tension regulation), unification (integration of a coherent set of goals), or optimal disillusionment (reality testing). These practices, for patients who have not yet reached the oedipal level, are defended on the grounds that the therapeutic aim of psychoanalysis is the completion of interrupted developmental processes.
Modern analysts will not find their credulity taxed by the notion that there are patients who have never achieved the oedipal level—patients whose pathology does not represent a regression from some higher level of functioning. They will be familiar with such deviations from classical technique as exploration, confrontation, and the control of overstimulation by limiting interventions to the patient's attempts at contact.
The author's interest, however, is not in offering alternatives to interpretation, but in offering alternatives to classical theory. Gedo offers self-organization as a new paradigm for psychoanalytic psychology. He believes that mental life begins with