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Those of you familiar with wines may know of Chateauneuf du Pape, a wine with Papal heritage from the Southern Rhone region of France. An historic blend of up to 13 varieties of red and white grapes, the wine is often referred to as a symphony of grapes in which each variety (quite interesting alone) adds a distinct dimension to the final product. A compelling aspect of this wine is how one sip reveals that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The wine is a triumph of a master vintner's accumulated wisdom over the decades, involving knowledge of diverse topics such as microclimates, soil chemistry, and grape varieties. In psychology, there are few who develop expertise that approximates the master vintner's. Our field has evolved into specialties and domains, with new promising techniques sprouting nearly every year. In reading scientific studies that must rely on rigorous controls and thus on increasing specificity of variables and manipulations, it is often difficult to keep hold of the idea that we are trying to understand a person. There is tension between achieving experimental specificity with the aim of finding universal truths (the nomothetic) and retaining the complexity and nuance of individual experience (the idiographic). The master vintner uses rigorous controls in farming and vinification, yet achieves a unique, complex symphonic whole in the bottle. The master psychologist has a similar challenge.
Without question, Sidney J. Blatt is a master psychologist. Conceptually, his work as a psychoanalytic clinician and researcher is broad and deep; it is methodologically careful and precise. In his book, Polarities of Experience: Relatedness and Self-Definition in Personality Development, Psychopathology, and the Therapeutic Process, Blatt sets forth a model of personality and psychopathology that is unique in its systematic, multifaceted attempt to understand a person's dynamic experiences. The model, which is framed by psychoanalytic theory and p