You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The key to unlocking the substantial value of Psychoanalytic Trends in Theory and Practice is to take it on its own terms. These are laid out briefly and clearly by M. Hossein Etezady, and echoed by Inga Blom and Mary Davis in their editorial introduction, which includes separately authored sections by each editor.
Etezady begins by reviewing the major trends he sees as having occurred in psychoanalysis in the second half of the twentieth century. These include the ascendency of “structural theory,” the “elaboration of object relations,” and the advent of “infant research and new conceptual models of attachment.” He cites the importance of “pioneering analytic researchers who emerged after the Second World War” and notes that during that period, “teaching, training, research, and clinical practice” were “radically influenced” by the “new cultural and sociopolitical realities of the extra-clinical environment” and by “doctrinal challenges and schismatic divisions within institutions and among members of the same schools of thought.” He concludes by pointing out that it was in this psychoanalytic and cultural landscape that “self-psychology, intersubjectivity, and relational approaches to treatment and prevention became better known and more influential” (p. 1).
He then states that the editorial goal of Psychoanalytic Trends in Theory and Practice is to create a resource for “psychoanalytic students and their teachers,” which will provide them with “an update of concepts in theory and practice, concerning these various trends, under divergent cultural conditions” (p. 1). The intention is for the book to offer “the essentials of various concepts and their development, as we strive towards increasing integration and a more holistic viewpoint of our ever-expanding field” (p. 2), and, further, “to provide a discretely focused emphasis on