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The analyst's preconscious, I think we might all agree, is subject matter well worth study, since we know so little about it. One wonders why this might be so. My own suspicion is that we live too close to it, so that, from one point of view, we know too much about it and, from another, too little. If one stands too close to a painting, one sees more and less of the painting. Victoria Hamilton in this book shares with us her effort to broach this dark continent.
Hamilton brings to her task a rich background in art, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. Her psychoanalytic training occurred first at the Tavistock Clinic and was followed by postgraduate study in the Psychoanalytic Unit of the University of London. She is currently a supervising and training analyst in the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles and practices adult and child analysis. She previously wrote Narcissus and Oedipus, published in 1982.
The present work is based on a series of intensive structured interviews with 65 practicing analysts in both England and the United States. This material is complemented by questionnaire data based on a device called the “Psychoanalysts' Orientation Questionnaire” (POQ), the purpose of which was to elicit information on analysts' theoretical orientations and their influence on clinical praxis. Sixty-four of the 65 filled out the questionnaire. The interview protocol and rating sheet are included in an appendix. The analysts selected were all members of the American Psychoanalytic or the International, with the exception of three Sullivanian interpersonalists from New York. Subjects were drawn from the British Psycho-Analytical Society and from societies in New York and California. One might question the selection, since other important analytic centers have been excluded, but, then again, every selection is a selection and, if the point was to