Prologue

This issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry follows a design that has achieved increasing popularity in today's pluralist world of psychoanalytic theory and practice. Providing a case presentation that incorporates detailed process notes along with a number of discussions of that case taken from divergent theoretical perspectives that appeals to the clinician operating in a postmodern setting. By proposing alternative ideas to the reader, the reader is afforded an opportunity to conceptualize from his or her own perspective the approach most conducive to good analytic work for the particular patient as he or she has envisioned her from reading the material presented. Or the reader may discover that alternative views suggested in the discussions may be integrated, establishing a more textured, more complex vision of the analytic pair at work together, a process facilitated through application of a systems sensibility. The abiding lesson—that there is no one good way to do our work but, on the other hand, that not all ways are equally good—is put forward persuasively in this format.

In this issue, Holly Levenkron offers us a clear example of an application of a relational framework to psychoanalysis, presenting an intimate, highly personal view of dramatic engagement with her patient, Ali. She encompasses in her work, as well as in her own commentary on it, illustrations of the concepts of those relationalists who have most influenced her, including Jessica Benjamin, Darlene Ehrenberg, and many of the discussants who share this issue with Dr.Levenkron, including Phillip Bromberg, Stuart Pizer, Malcolm Slavin, and Owen Renik. We are also introduced to Dr. Levenkron's own conceptual contributions to relational psychoanalysis, including her helpful notion of affective honesty, which each of the discussants comments on.

I believe this issue offers another facet of great value to our understanding of what is meant by a relational sensibility. All of the discussants in this issue ar