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We are at an exciting and controversial point in the history of psychoanalysis. Prompted to some degree by dramatic shifts in world, and especially American economic forces, by neuroscientific advances that lead every day to potential new somatic treatments, and by political changes resulting in a collective, more powerful female voice in our field, psychoanalytic theory and practice have moved away from the classical, Freudian stance. The literature has been grappling less with the vicissitudes of oedipal transferences and more with issues of technique, with child-parent research and its influence on later development and the therapeutic process, with the impact of sociocultural factors on the therapeutic process, and, with more specificity than ever, with the nuances of the patient-therapist dyad. It is with this general movement as backdrop that The Therapist as a Person makes a fine contribution to our literature.
Many of the brave and candid contributors to this collection of essays share a theoretical bent: their perspective seems to be that Freud's one-person psychology is limited and outdated and should be replaced by two-person theory (Gill, 1983). There is no doubt that discovery of this “potential space” (Winnicott, 1965) between members of the dyad has broached rich areas for scrutiny and learning, improving the therapist's knowledge of the patient and himself, ultimately enhancing an understanding of the patient. I sometimes wonder, though, if excessive concentration on countertransference, and on the space between patient and therapist, distracts the therapist from his main mission: the state of the patient's psyche and alleviation of his suffering.
I do not mean to detract from the uniqueness of The Therapist as a Person. It is divided into two sections, the first 10 essays, under