Psychoanalysis Comparable and Incomparable. The Evolution of a Method to Describe and Compare Psychoanalytic Approaches By Dana Birksted-Breen (general editor). London:  The New Library of Psychoanalysis. Published in association with the Institute of Psychoanalysis.

This book describes an ongoing project initiated in 2000 by the European Psychoanalytic Federation (EPF) as a Working Party on Clinical Issues (WPG). As part of a new scientific policy, the EPF council set up working parties in 4 areas: clinical issues, educational issues, clarifying theory issues, and the promotion and protection of psychoanalysis. The working groups' function was to consider how to stimulate a deeper understanding in their respective areas and to facilitate pan-European groups working in depth. In the case of clinical work, it was stated that there is an urgent need to clarify what are the core features and range of effective psychoanalytic techniques and settings.

Two years later, the WPG differentiated into two tracks. It was felt that struggles had arisen in the workshops organized by the working party because there were two different and possibly conflicting aims that required different approaches. Track 1, led by David Tuckett, subsequently became the Working Party on Comparative Clinical Methods (WPCCM). This group set out to develop a formalized typology of the technical differences in the actual work of analysts. Track 2, led by Haydée Faimberg, carries on under the name of WPG and aims at understanding and articulating the basic assumptions (explicit and implicit) that underlie the way of working of any particular analyst.

This volume is the first outcome of the WPCCM (formerly track 1 of the WPG) of which the 10 writers of this volume are members. As mentioned, the group was led by David Tuckett (Great Britain). Dana Birksted-Breen (Great Britain) functioned as the general editor of this volume in which the group's work is documented. The other authors and working party members are Roberto Basile (Italy), Tomas Böhm (Sweden), Paul Denis (France), Antonino Ferro (Italy), Helmut Hinz (Germany), Arne Jemstedt (Sweden), Paola Mariotti (Great Britain) and Johan Schubert (Sweden).

The book comprises 10 chapters, 8 of which describe the evolution