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The stated aim of this book is to
…attempt to bring together the varying strands of psychoanalytic theory and practice to highlight their common ground and differences.
Anthony Bateman is a Consultant Psychotherapist and a Member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, while Jeremy Holmes is a Consultant Psychiatrist and
Psychotherapist. The authors bring their complementary clinical trainings and considerable combined clinical experience to bear on the development of this interesting collaborative project in which they hope to clarify, question and extract what is valuable from each psychoanalytic viewpoint and to bring us up-to-date on contemporary psychoanalytic thought. The book is divided into two parts, the first being devoted to theory while the second is concerned with practice. The volume is completed with an extensive reference section.
At the outset, we are introduced to some of the key issues of debate and controversy which are alive in contemporary psychoanalysis. As part of the necessary context within which these need to be considered, we are offered a simplified account of the history and development of the psychoanalytic movement, through some of its leading exponents and across continental and cultural divides. Among the contentious issues with which contemporary psychoanalysis continues to struggle, Bateman & Holmes start with the definition of psychoanalysis itself; and while outlining the main viewpoints currently under debate, they arrive at their own working definition, and emphasise that theirs is a provisional view which may well change over time, depending on further clinical experience and theoretical developments. Psychoanalytic therapy is seen by them
…as a spectrum from ‘full’ psychoanalysis to psychoanalytic psychotherapy, from the use of methods that are expressing to those that are supportive, from interpretation to ‘holding’.
Thus, right from the beginning, our attention is engaged as the authors convey the vitality and diversity of