Beyond Postmodernism: New Dimensions in Clinical Theory and Practice. Edited by Roger Frie and Donna Orange. New York:  Routledge, 2009.  243 pp.: The Intimate Room: Theory and Technique of the Analytic Field. By Giuseppe Civitarese; translated by Philip Slotkin. New York:  Routledge, 2010.  222 pp.

Psychoanalysts of today are being called upon to move beyond postmodernism. Generally speaking, however, our theory and clinical work have barely caught up with the postmodern critique of modernist assumptions, and we often display only a tenuous grasp of what postmodernism entails. The two books reviewed here, coming from different approaches, help us navigate the discussion of modernism versus postmodernism and the future of psychoanalysis.

Beyond Postmodernism: New Dimensions in Clinical Theory and Practice consists of an introduction to the subject and ten essays. The excellent, informative, and detailed introduction is by Roger Frie; the chapters are by William Coburn, Morris Eagle, Anthony Elliott, Jon Frederickson, Roger Frie, Arnold Modell, Donna Orange (who also wrote the postscript), Robert D. Stolorow, Judith Guss Teicholz, and Heward Wilkinson. Taken as a whole, the book provides a comprehensive description of the implications for the psychoanalytic theory and practice of modernism and postmodernism.

Beyond Postmodernism addresses the implicit question of whether psychoanalysis can be situated between modernism and postmodernism, and concludes—by means of a sustained discussion—that it cannot. Some parts of the book contain arguments that psychoanalysis must