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While psychoanalysis has never lacked its share of theoretical dissent, as Schoenewolfs companion volume (also 1990) on early landmark cases suggests, this study of cases from midcentury to the present reveals a salutary
disposition on the part of 11 clinicians representing several schools of analytic thought, to transcend conventional shibboleths that have long haunted classical analysis.
The present work includes generous case synopses and comparative discussion by the author (and others cited) of the treatment techniques and theoretical formulations developed by Fairbairn, Winnicott, Erikson, Lindner, Fromm-Reichmann, Mahler, Jacobson, Searles, Kohut, Spotnitz, and Kernberg. Schoenewolf explains his rationale for this selection: Fairbairn and Winnicott, whose sequential analyses of Guntrip “expanded object relations theory”; Erikson, Jacobson, and Kernberg, who demonstrated the clinical application of ego psychology; Mahler, Fromm-Reichmann, Searles, and Lindner, whose “more or less eclectic approaches” demonstrated new techniques for the treatment of psychotics; Kohut, for his work with narcissistic personalities; Spotnitz, whose (designated) modern psychoanalytic techniques prove effective with borderline, narcissistic, and schizophrenic patients.
Schoenewolf's clear reportorial style and facility at synthesizing complex theoretical issues make his book easy reading. While the reader with strong preferences may wish he had selected a different array of notables, he has brought to life basic data, often referenced in the literature but in fuller context less familiar to readers. Taken as a group, their treatment styles dispel some hoary dicta of the past concerning the intractability of psychosis to analytic cure, the centrality of rational interpretation, the invariant model of analytic neutrality, and the belief that powerful positive or negative feelings in the analyst toward the patient signify unresolved pathology within the analyst, rather than — in most i