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This is an important primer to the world of relational psychoanalytic thinking and clinical practice. In a concise and accessible short volume, Steven Kuchuck very clearly lays out the basic concepts that are critical to the “umbrella” of relational thinking and provides clear definitions and clinical examples. For Kuchuk, the umbrella concept is important in recognizing the intellectual richness and diverse streams that fed into relational psychoanalysis. Equally important, he contextualizes relational therapy by identifying the factors that inspired its development, including cultural and intellectual innovations as well as the growing recognition of the limitations of classical psychoanalysis. For Kuchuk (and others), the innovations within relational therapy represent a shift so radical as to be viewed as revolutionary, hence the title. Kuchuk's early training was in classical ego psychology/object relations, so he truly understands the intellectual journey inherent in the development of relational therapy and the problems it seeks to address.
Kuchuk argues that late 20th-century psychoanalytic theory had to change because it was struggling with the limitations of being authoritarian, hierarchical, misogynist, homophobic, racist, dualistic, and Cartesian. Until the 1970s, psychoanalysis was “an interpretative-heavy objectivist perspective in which an all-powerful, all-knowing authority could know another mind better than the patient could” (p. 2). This inevitably produces iatrogenic effects for both the patient and the therapist. For the patient, the inherently submissive position denies agency and (often) the validity of their experience. The therapist also suffers, often feeling like a failure, because one truly doesn't know the patient's mind better than the patient. In addition, the classical model deemed many people unanalyzable or beyond its therapeutic reaches without recognizing how the model itself limited therapeutic reach.