You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Jay Greenberg has a difficult task: to follow his first book (with Stephen Mitchell), Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory (1983), which became a psychoanalytic classic almost as soon as it was published. I consider it one of the best books ever written on comparative psychoanalysis.
Greenberg does not disappoint the reader in Oedipus and Beyond. He embellishes the drive-theory half of the theoretical split between drive and relational theories delineated in his first book. His overall effort is to both critique and enlarge the scope of drive theory and classical theory in general. Greenberg's basic theoretical allegiance is to classical thinking. His goal in this book is to cleanse it of what he considers anachronistic and clinically awkward, or useless, and enrich it with new ways of looking at old concepts. He is most influenced in this examination and innovation by Roy Schafer and Joseph Sandler. He also follows in the tradition of Robert Holt and George Klein in their attempts to retain the clinical richness of classical conceptions while moving the theory away from its biological and mechanistic roots. This book reminds me of their and their colleagues' (including Schafer) work, though Greenberg adds a dimension not available to these other thinkers.
Though I believe that Greenberg does identify himself theoretically as Freudian, he has far more personal exposure to relational points of view than most classical writers. His strong background in interpersonal and object relations perspectives influences the way he views both theoretical and clinical matters. I believe that Greenberg is distinctive in this respect. His brand of classical thinking is so full of relational themes that the nature of his emendations to drive theory is radically different than other classical