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This new book by Susan Kavaler-Adler takes on the timely project of transcending the longstanding divergence between the psychoanalytic approaches of Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott. With the possible exception of Wilfred Bion, these are arguably the two most influential intellectual descendants of Freud among North American analysts, and though their ideas spring from a common source, the differences between them (and their followers) continue to divide the field. Given the long history of this schism, Kavaler-Adler's project represents the height of ambition, as reflected in her subtitle, Transformative New Metapsychology and Interactive Clinical Theory. In agreeing to review this book, I became aware of anxiety about my anticipated disappointment—it seemed improbable that this book could measure up the scope of its ambition, and I was concerned about the kind of review I might end up writing.
So it is with relief that I can report that, by and large, this book lives up to its billing. Kavaler-Adler has achieved a rare feat: She has written a book that breaks intellectual ground in approaching the differences between Klein and Winnicott in a way that simultaneously preserves and overcomes those differences as she develops a position that benefits from both visions. Kavaler-Adler develops her ideas with refreshing clarity and directness, simplicity without any apparent sacrifice of subtlety. This is a book that is sure to have a real and immediate impact on the reader's clinical work, not simply by the presentation of ideas about technique, but more importantly, through the articulation of a model of therapeutic action that reorients the reader to clinical process, particularly in relation to those patients who so perversely seem to prefer self-destruction to the possibility of emotional growth.
One novel aspect of Kavaler-Adler's approach involves the method by which she seeks to chart her middle path between Klein and Winnicott. Rather than either a strictly theor