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Judith Rustin, a highly accomplished and seasoned psychoanalyst-clinician, has made a valuable contribution to the ever-expanding and rapidly growing literature that demonstrates how infant research, neurobiological theory, attachment theory, and intersubjective theory (to name a few) influence contemporary psychotherapeutic practice. Her text offers a clear and readily accessible summary of current literature that is gaining increasing legitimacy in the psychoanalytic community. She suggests that the book has three purposes: (1) to summarize and synthesize basic concepts from infant research and neuroscience for clinicians who are unfamiliar with this content; (2) with case examples, to demonstrate how to integrate select concepts from this literature into mainstream psychotherapy; and (3) to invite clinicians to integrate concepts of the book into their own clinical work. She has ably accomplished her three goals.
The text contains six chapters, and each chapter intends to expose the reader to essential components of theory that are more thoroughly explored by other authors in related fields. The author is clear that she has purposefully chosen content that she thinks offers a beginning explanation of complex theory to those readers who are less familiar with this literature. A major strength of this text is the author's utilization of extensive clinical material. She demonstrates an excellent capacity to enliven the theory in her lengthy case descriptions. I was able to glean a real sense of the author's clinical work and the examples leave no doubt that her integration of theory into practice has altered her approach to clinical work. Her patients benefit from this shift in Rustin's practice; the case examples clearly demonstrate considerable change in oftentimes difficult and highly defended and resistant clients. Her skills as a clinician are abundantly evident and the author notes to the reader how her thinking and practice has shifted as a result of her openn