Further Developments in Interpersonal Psychoanalysis 1980s-2010s ─ Evolving Interest in the Analyst Subjectivity

Further Developments in Interpersonal Psychoanalysis, 1980s-2010s is the second collection of selected classic articles of the modern era by psychoanalysts identified with the interpersonal perspective. The first, The Interpersonal Perspective in Psychoanalysis, 1960s-1990s presented articles by second and third generation interpersonalists. This book contains those written by the third and fourth generation of interpersonal psychoanalysts.

The articles selected by the Editors for this second book extend the theme of transference and countertransference that was the throughline of the first book, lending even greater significance in clinical practice to the analyst’s subjectivity and its relation to the patient’s mind. One chapter after another in this book reveal ways that the analyst’s experience can lead to a greater appreciation of the patient’s unconscious experience. It is because of papers such as these that interpersonal psychoanalysis has been described as the origin, at least in North America, of the contemporary clinical interest in psychoanalytic subjectivity. As in the first, the articles in this second book include classic contributions from Bromberg, Greenberg, Hirsch, Mitchell, Levenson, Stern, and Wolstein; these writers are joined here by Blechner, Bonovitz, Buechler, Fiscalini, Held-Weiss, Kuriloff, and White.

North American psychoanalysis has long been deeply influenced and substantially changed by clinical and theoretical perspectives first introduced by interpersonal psychoanalysis. Yet even today, despite its origin in the 1930s, many otherwise well-read psychoanalysts and psychotherapists are not well informed about the field. Along with its companion work, this book provides a superb starting point for those who are not as familiar with interpersonal psychoanalysis as they might be. For those who already know the literature, the book will be useful in placing a selection of classic interpersonal articles and their writers in key historical context.

Donnel B. Stern is Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute in New York City and Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychology on the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He is the founder and editor of the Routledge "Psychoanalysis in a New Key" book series and author of many psychoanalytic articles and books, the most recent of which is Relational Freedom: Emergent Properties of the Interpersonal Field.

Irwin Hirsch supervises and/or teaches at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis; the William Alanson White Institute; the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, National Program. He has authored over 80 journal articles and book chapters and two books: Coasting in the Countertransference: Conflicts of Self-Interest between Analyst and Patient, winner of the Goethe Award; and The Interpersonal Tradition: The Origins of Psychoanalytic Subjectivity.