Making Room for the Disavowed: Reclaiming the Self in Psychotherapy, by Paul Wachtel. New York & London:  Guilford Press, 2023.  336 pp., $51.00 (ISBN 9781462553174).

My own original training and background was in the psychodynamic tradition, and psychodynamic thought, especially in its newer relational forms, continues to inform and enrich my work to this day. But my psychodynamic sensibility owes as much to Robin Hood as to Freud. I steal reaches from other orientations, and I do so openly and brazenly. And, like Robin Hood (at least the Robin Hood of myth), my aim is to give away the fruits of my thieving to those in need—in this case, my patients. (P. L. Wachtel, 2023, p. 4)

Psychotherapy is a single word, but it houses many meanings. (P. L. Wachtel, 2023, p. 279)

When Paul Wachtel's new book was published, I knew I would not only be reading it very intently but that I would also be interested in reviewing it, and in a. The latter is far from being straightforward because Wachtel's work appeals to numerous audiences beyond psychoanalytic psychologists: to humanistic psychologists, cognitive behavioral therapists, family therapists, and—most obviously— integrationists. Why I wanted to review it and why for a psychoanalytic venue was quite clear to me: Wachtel's writings constitute a formidable cornerstone of my own intellectual–professional family. His doctoral dissertation advisor—the late Sidney J. Blatt—is my own mythological mentor (Shahar & Mayes, 2017). Wachtel's writings were the ones stirring me toward psychotherapy integration (Shahar, 2004), and—perhaps most relevant here—they add grist to the neverending mill of my own love–rage relationship with psychoanalysis. Hence, in initiating this review, I knew that the task would be absorbing, exhilarating, arduous, and most of all meaningful. I hope that this review conveys all of these in a way that pays the book the respect it deserves.

The book constitutes Wachtel's latest iteration in a fascinating journey toward a comprehensive integration of psychoanalytic and nonpsychoanalytic psychotherapeutic schools of thought. Wachtel's previous work entailed an integration of inte