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Arnold Goldberg's thoughtful book should be read with care. It is well written and so not hard to read, with helpful subtitles and many brief case vignettes. It is not theory laden, but of course Goldberg is an eminent promoter of self psychology and his orientation shows throughout his writings. I like to think of this book as having a kind of rambling, friendly somewhat repetitive, anecdotal, almost free associative style that takes off from previous publications, so I will start this book review with a few brief sentences to introduce what I have written on the subject. In my (1971) book Why Psychotherapists Fail (not cited by Goldberg), I wrote, “The greatest hope for preventing failure in psychotherapy lies in improving psychotherapists” (p. 33) and,
In individual therapy it is becoming clear that an optimal psychic field must be presented to the patient by the therapist. This will obviously require talented individuals; good supervision and adequate training in psychodynamic and therapeutic technique; and humane, optimistic, and mature individuals with the leisure to create and to promote empathy and interest in their patients, (p. 34)