Prologue

Comparative Psychoanalysis is at its Best when the same detailed case material is explored from a number of perspectives. It is particularly the case when the presenter and discussants are prominent analysts. To have a senior, well-respected psychoanalyst present detailed clinical material, including process material, all too rare in our psychoanalytic literature, enables other clinicians to enter into, get “a feel” for, and meaningfully address, from their perspectives, the intersubjective interplay. Two such explorations have previously been published in Psychoanalytic Inquiry: the first with clinical material from a classical perspective (1987, Vol.  7, No. 4) and the second from a self-psychological perspective (1990, Vol.  10, No. 4).

This issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry will be the third comparative case exploration, this time focusing on an object relations clinical presentation. This study served as the First Annual Conference of the Association for Autonomous Psychoanalytic Institutes (AAPI), March 3, 2001, in New York City. We are, indeed, fortunate to have an outstanding roster of psychoanalysts for this study. Jill Savege Scharff, a well-known and respected object relations theoretician and practitioner presents the clinical material. Seven noted psychoanalysts of different perspectives, in turn, discuss Scharff's clinical material. They are Arnold Rothstein, Anne Alvarez, Donnel Stern, Jeff Seinfeld, Frank M. Lachmann, Philip M. Bromberg, and Robert D. Stolorow. Their expertise will cover contemporary conflict, neo-Kleinian, interpersonal/relational, object relations, self psychology, and intersubjective systems perspectives. Each discussant carves out his or her unique understanding of the material with a particular focus on what goes into the process of change. Scharff then replies to the discussants. I close with an Epilogue that highlights the discussants' theoretical nodal points and, more specifically, focuses on their theories of therapeutic action