Imagine if you presented one patient to eleven different analysts. Would you get relatively similar or completely diverse treatment approaches? In this remarkably unique book, Virginia Hunter does just that, presenting an analytic session she conducted with a borderline patient to eleven prestigious psychoanalysts. Then, taking this idea one step further, she delves into the individual histories of each of these master clinicians, exploring the close relationship between the clinical practice and theoretical foundations of psychoanalysis and the factors that influence it.
In provocative, compelling interviews, the clinicians talk candidly about their backgrounds, their personal myths and ideals, their cultural and educational experiences, and their encounters with social and analytic politics. Hunter demonstrates how these varied factors have influenced each analyst's choice of vocation, and contributed to the development of their theories of the mind, as well as their allegiance to the approaches they have adhered to throughout their professional careers. The book features in-depth discussions with such distinguished analysts as André Green, Hanna Segal, Frances Tustin, John Bowlby, Ernest Wolf, Peter Giovacchini, Arnold Goldberg, Rudolf Ekstein, Robert Wallerstein, Arnold Modell and Jacob Arlow. By creating this unusual dialogue, Hunter illustrates how theories of psychoanalysis are constructed, sustained, and passed along throughout generations of analysts. In addition, she compiles these theories into a chart, and presents a clear and concise sample of the different psychoanalytic theories that underlie the statements and points of view of the eleven analysts consulted.
Providing a profound and enlightening journey into the minds of gifted analysts, and illustrating their differences in emphasis as well as the continuity in their approaches, Psychoanalysts Talk is important reading for any clinician practicing psychoanalysis. Similarly, this book is illuminating for lay readers interested in learning how varied theories of the mind may be useful in understanding a patient and conducting analysis. And finally, the book shows in an illuminating way how many creative possibilities exist in each analytic encounter.