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Roth and Kulb have produced an ambitious work written with modesty. Their book is innovative, yet steeped in respect for the traditions the authors review and develop. It is also a clinical work with annotated transcripts, yet most of its pages are devoted to explication and elaboration of theory. Roth and Kulb have attempted a major integration of competing psychodynamic models (and models outside psychoanalysis) and have developed a research tool for testing their integration. Readers will differ in evaluating the success of the integration; I believe all will agree that Roth and Kulb are seasoned, responsible, and effective clinicians with a great deal of wisdom to convey.
This book is based on nearly two decades of observation, treatment, and teaching at the Parent-Infant Development Service founded by Roth at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago. It is sustained by a core axiom: that the infant-parent unit is the model for psychological functioning and its form is universal in design. For the authors, treatment principles are also universal, although the specifics of both development and treatment are always unique. Patients are studied individually as well as in dyads and triads for their uniqueness, and, simultaneously, from the perspective of Roth and Kulb's universal infant-parent model.
The authors aim to provide a replicable system of diagnosis and treatment across ages and pathologies. The system would encompass differing therapeutic modalities, including short-term work of limited focus. Although their core axiom places them squarely within the relational orientation, their approach is nonargumentative, detailed, and rigorous. They are highly respectful of the complexity and multidimensionality of human relations and