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Lavinia Gomez has written an introductory text that contains such a deep division between its two parts that it can almost be conceptualized as two books in a single volume. The first part, entitled
“Theory,” consists of seven chapters, each of which elucidates the thought of a major theoretician, and the second part contains three chapters rubricized as “Application.” Her target audience is not only psychodynamic therapists, but also counselors or therapists who may not be psychoanalytically informed, but seek to broaden their theoretical base by becoming acquainted with object relations concepts.
The theoretical part of the book begins with a chapter on Freud, and the next six chapters explicate the theories of six major object relations theorists: Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Balint, Guntrip, and Bowlby. Each of these chapters is to be commended for its clear and accurate presentation of complex theoretical ideas. It is obvious that Gomez is well-versed in the work of these theorists, and she does an outstanding job of elucidating their thought in prose that is readable and jargon-free without sacrificing the complexity of the material. As a primer intended to explicate some fundamental object relations concepts to mental health workers uninitiated into this way of thinking, I judge this work to be highly successful.
My primary caveat in making this assessment lies in the (unacknowledged) limitations in the scope of this work: it does not reach beyond theory developed on English soil. There is no discussion of American object relations theorists such as Kernberg, Mahler, or Jacobson, and no mention of the American movement that falls under the broad umbrella of “relational psychoanalysis.” The latter is a particularly striking omission given that Gomez uses the concept “relational” with great frequency. Such a limitation is serious indeed for a work deemed to reflect the state of the field. Also, the volume suffers from Gomez's unfamiliarity with Americans who hav