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This volume is the latest addition to a series on relational psychoanalysis. It comprises 19 papers and a foreword by Spyros Orfanos. The subtitle of this volume is Evolution of Process and the contributions as a whole cover various aspects of analytic process from the point of view of relational analysis. There are several papers in this volume which are exquisitely, at times poetically, expressed, deeply moving clinical vignettes. It is also clear that the analysts have a deep emotional involvement with their patients and with their patients’ treatments.
Various aspects of the relational view of the clinical process are discussed in this volume and, as might be expected, there are differences in focus. There is a creative paper by Slochower on the clinical “misdemeanors” of the analyst, and a discussion of a relational model of development by Seligman. Salberg discusses the somewhat infrequently addressed subject of termination in analysis and Beebe and Stern separately set out a developmental model of mother-infant interaction to account for the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis from an intersubjective, relational perspective. Gabbard and Ogden discuss the connection between the personal and professional development of the analyst and suggest that all analysts are affected by their own analysts and supervisors from the past and that a form of “parricide” is needed to free the analyst from this influence to find his or her own voice.
However, the topic addressed most frequently in this collection is relational techniques and interventions to resolve transference-countertransference impasse and enactments. The challenge that these papers present is whether the consistent use of self-disclosure as a generally applicable intervention facilitates therapeutic action for the benefit of the patient in an analysis stuck in an impasse.
Several authors—for example, Bromberg, Harris, Ehrenberg, Davies, Cooper, and Knoblauch—address this issue. Harris (“You Must Remember This