Reconstruction in Psychoanalysis. Childhood revisited and recreated: Harold P. Blum. Madison, CT: Int. Univ. Press, 1994.

The rôle of reconstruction in psychoanalytic technique has long been ignored. After Freud's death in 1939, the technical use of reconstruction continued to exist in clinical practice. However, there was no further refinement of its technical rationale. During the past decade, however, there has been a renewed interest in investigating its technical value and in improving its therapeutic and conceptual basis. One of those who has contributed to this development is Harold P. Blum, clinical professor of psychiatry and training analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute, New York University Medical Center.

From 1980–1985, he chaired a research group of experienced analysts whose aim was to explore and clarify the concept of reconstruction. Among the questions asked were: “How has the concept of reconstruction changed with the development of psychoanalytic theory and technique? What is the therapeutic mode and strategy of reconstruction? How are the therapeutic effects of reconstruction achieved?” He has now gathered and systematized his various data and published his inferences and conclusions in a monograph on the subject. In this book, he discusses the relevance of reconstruction as a concept and as a specific technical intervention. He gives a comprehensive reassessment of reconstruction, and argues for the importance of applying and integrating it with other clinical and theoretical perspectives. Almost every aspect of the problem of reconstruction is taken up, considered and elucidated from different angles. Reconstruction is defined, related to and distinguished from construction and genetic interpretation.

First, he surveys Freud's various uses of the concept. Its central position in his early seduction and trauma theory, and the practical significance in his more advanced psychoanalytic theory.

Many analysts seem to view reconstruction as belonging to the early psychoanalytic theories when the patients were “cured” and relieved of their symptoms by having their re