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Claudia Luiz's book is arguably the best lay book written on modern psychoanalysis. The author is very much a professional, but she writes here in language that will be easily understood by anyone, and she tells stories of her work with patients in a compelling way that would be equally interesting to analysts and to
laypeople. And this lay book's power and poignancy are such that this reviewer, a quite seasoned clinician (45 years of seeing patients), not only thoroughly enjoyed it but, more importantly, learned from it. It incorporates autobiographical reflections at times, both sensitive and tactful, that have the effect of presenting the reader with an openhearted account of her own growth, as a woman, a wife, a mother, and an analyst.
Luiz's writing reveals all the basic attributes of a qualified, talented clinician: she is smart, sensitive, astute, intuitive. But what struck me especially clearly, shining through every sentence and every thought, was her training. She had the same training I had (essentially, though most of hers was at CMPS's sister institute in Boston), and constantly as I read, on practically every page, there was a recognition moment for me—an intellectual and emotional perception of the theoretical perspective we share. This is not to say that all the aforementioned attributes are not equally important as training—intuition, empathy, intelligence are clearly invaluable, even essential qualities; but they are not all. Good training brings talented analysts to be, as Luiz clearly is, brilliantly effective analysts.
Luiz illustrates, through many vignettes of her work with patients, the conceptualization of how to effectively be with patients. Of course, this concept of being with the patient is definitional to the work analysts do. We must approach the work essentially without ambition: no wish to change the patient, no wish to take them out of pain, no wish for anything at all to happen in the treatment other than finding ways of being toge