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In this, her latest in a series of publications exploring how emotion theory informs psychoanalytic work, Sandra Buechler once again comprehensively addresses the complexity inherent in the psychoanalytic endeavor for both patient and analyst. She attributes the not infrequently encountered experience of “burnout” in part to our denial of the impact of repeated losses and experiences of shame, which she believes affect us not only in regard to our professional selves, but also on a deeply personal level.
The full title of this book implies both 1) that the author's retrospective analysis of her career represents a new beginning as well as an ending of a previous phase, and 2) that she intends to continue growing as a clinician. Therefore, she will always be “still practicing,” in both senses of the term. Buechler believes that anxiety and insecurity are inherent in the psychoanalytic career, but that self-reflection, as well as the process of communicating this through her publications, together promote integration of her own self and thereby contribute to her ongoing professional and personal development.
In her previous volume (2008), Buechler presented a powerful critique of psychoanalytic training in the United States, detailing how and why she believes it reinforces shame, anxiety, and other traits which are diametrically opposed to what she regards as essential qualities for a psychoanalyst. Though she continues to address these issues, to some extent, in the current volume, Buechler's emphasis has shifted more toward an exploration of how emotion theory contributes to and informs her analytic practice, and thereby also her personal sense of self. She highlights the emotion of shame, which she sees as inherent to a career in which we continually experience a variety of unacknowledged, unmourned narcissistic injuries and other kinds of losses. She believes that these unrecognized feelings contribute to a tendency towards shaming new psychoanalytic inductees, as w