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Victoria Hamilton's complex and comprehensive book, The Analysts Preconscious, grew out of doctoral research on transference, and evolved into the present book which is a systematic study of the interpretive practices of psychoanalysts in the U.S. and Britain.
Hamilton finds the Freudian concept of the preconscious a more efficacious concept than the use of countertransference in order to understand the array of influences, actions and beliefs that contribute to the practice of contemporary psychoanalysis.
This book should appeal to readers who respect the hard science of statistical research as well as those who prefer the soft science of anecdotal interview. One of the 65 analysts interviewed expressed the uniqueness of Hamilton's enterprise, “I wish there were more opportunities like this. Nobody ever asks me these sorts of questions.” The semi-directed interviews centered on 27 psychoanalytic topics and ranged from 45 minutes to two hours. Analysts were selected to represent variations in orientations, age, experience and seniority in local institutes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and London. The second source of information was a questionnaire on the type and degree of influence of a number of key thinkers and schools. Statistical analysis revealed the two most cohesive groups were Bion-Kleinians and Self Psychologists. A major finding in Hamilton's research is that analysts practice far more loosely than they publicly claim.