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I have just completed a review of another book by these authors. Entitled Dream Fulfillment, it was published only one year before this one. Thus I was intrigued to determine whether or not some of the semantic problems posed by the language of these existentially oriented analysts would be explicated in this, their latest work. This work is more
metapsychological and has as its main aim an explanation of the pentadimensional model briefly described in Dream Fulfillment. My previous review, which should be taken in tandem with this one, makes reference to the confusing way in which dramatic and philosophically abstract language make it difficult to get a feel for the real patient buried in the language. This style of writing, typical of existential philosophy, requires extensive other reading to get used to. Thus, one has to approach this type of material with a different mind-set from that one would use to read traditional psychoanalytic theorizing.
In addition, these authors have evolved from their theory a new therapeutic technique called “Paradigmatic Psychoanalysis.” They use the term paradigm in Kuhn's sense, as a set of assumptions. In this book, they try to clarify those assumptions about the functioning of both the unconscious and the conscious mind that underpin their particular view of how psychoanalytic therapy should be done. Continuing the argument of the first book, the authors early on once more state that there are aspects of importance to psychoanalysis that are neither conscious, preconscious nor unconscious. The authors take up what has by now become a common refrain among modern writers: that analysis of transference and understanding of the infantile neurosis is not enough.
They point out their specific meaning of the idea of “deficit” (p. 5), which briefly appeared in the previous book and was very poorly described there. Here, deficit is seen essentially as that which is necessary to make symbolic reorganization possible. This is not necessar