Interpretive Voices: Responding to Patients

The contributions in this book exemplify ways in which different analysts think about and treat the issue of interpretation, explicitly or implicitly exploring the question of whether there is something distinctive about the way in which an analyst expresses his or her own personality and understanding within the medium of psychoanalysis. Each analyst construes the aims, theories, and body of knowledge of psychoanalysis in his/her own particular way, and when responding to patients, expresses these in an analytic climate with its own particular diction, vocabulary, and distinctive voice.

This is a book about the practice of psychoanalysis and the interaction between two personalities–the patient and analyst–in the analytic space. The ten chapters herein illustrate the individual interpretive voices of their authors, their analytic methods, their understanding of their patients and how they communicate their understanding, while remaining authentic. Though this book does not in any way promote the idea that “anything goes”, the editors do feel that the analytic frame and process can and must embrace not only different theoretical views but also differences in how analysts listen to and communicate with their patients. Individuality is implicit in the literature, capable of being demonstrated, and an important factor in the analytic process.