The fact we cannot parse what brings about therapeutic change in psychoanalysis does not stop us from trying. We all have had the chance to ponder what works and why, and we hone our beliefs from personal experience and bolster them with our theoretical preferences. For example, is it the psychoanalyst's interpretive act of making the unconscious conscious that results in change? Or is it the analyst's relational function that allows for potential growth in the patient? The answer: yes. What is one without the other?

A new volume of essays by West Coast psychoanalysts takes on the question of analytic change. In The Second Century of Psychoanalysis: Evolving Perspectives on Therapeutic Action, editors Michael J. Diamond and Christopher Christian bring together an ensemble of seasoned voices, each of whom addresses a different aspect of mutative change.