You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Ringstrom has written a comprehensive, insightful, well-organized, and in-depth book presenting a model of relational psychoanalysis for couples in long-term committed relationships. Ringstrom presents a solid theoretical foundation to support his model of treating couples, outlines three specifics themes to be addressed in a six-step model, and then provides multiple case examples that illustrate how to work with couples using an intersubjective relational approach to couples psychotherapy. Ringstrom is very open and personal as he conveys how he treats couples in psychotherapy. The case examples provide an intimate look into the couples’ dynamics, and Ringstrom's subjective experience. I found this extremely useful and valuable, giving the reader a real glimpse into how he actually practices as a relational psychoanalytic therapist.
As you begin reading the book, Ringstrom invites the reader into a courtship, so to speak, with the author, where there is the meeting of minds; the author's mind with the mind of the reader. Reading the book felt like a very intimate conversation; a cognitive and emotional experience of making sense out of what Ringstrom is conveying, while simultaneously discovering my own subjective interpretations of what I think he is saying. Is my subjective experience attuned to what he experiences as his ideas flow out across the pages of this most interesting book? It is an experience, as Ringstrom indicates, of interpreting and penetrating one another's minds over time. Immediately, the reader is introduced to the intersubjective and relational perspectives of contemporary psychoanalysis. In so many ways, I found my experience of reading the book a process of trying to reach deeper levels of empathic immersion, both in terms of what Ringstrom is saying and what I think he is saying.
Chernus (2015) also points out that we can only understand the individual's subjective experience through our own subjectivity and perceptions. In order to emotiona