Contemporary psychoanalytic field theory, Katz, S. Montana

The clinical examples provided here demonstrate contemporary psychoanalytic techniques that uncover meanings that are both fresh　and　enlightening, 　and address heterosexuality, homosexuality,　gender,　and perversion　from a psychoanalytic perspective. Divided into four parts,　the book includes the following:

Historical context

Foundational concepts: Contemporary elaborations

Homosexuality

Perversion revisited

Throughout　Sexualities: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives　the reader will find psychoanalytic wisdom that is transferrable to work with patients of all sexualities, and will see that the essentials of sexuality may be more similar than they are different for homo- and hetero-sexuality. 　Psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as academics interested in the　subjects　of psychoanalysis, gender, sexuality, or homosexuality will find this book an invaluable resource.

Alessandra Lemma, 　PhD is Director of the Psychological Therapies Development Unit at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. She is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society and Visiting Professor in the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London. She is a Consultant Adult Psychotherapist at the Portman Clinic where she specializes in working with transsexuals. She has published extensively on psychoanalysis, the body and trauma.

Paul E. Lynch, MD is on the faculty of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, and the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance.　 He teaches about psychoanalysis, gender, and sexuality, and has been a popular speaker on issues of homosexuality and psychoanalysis. 　　He is also a Clinical Instructor of Psychiatry at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Field theory is a family of related bi-personal psychoanalytic perspectives falling into three principal models, which developed relatively independently. One of the principal models is based upon the work of Madeleine and Willy Baranger. The second, constructed by Katz, draws upon what is held in common by the implicit field theories in the United States of the interpersonal, intersubjective, relational and motivational systems' psychoanalytic perspectives. The third is based upon the work of Antonino Ferro. For each, Katz elucidates its conception of mind, unconscious processes, the specific field concept employed, therapeutic goals, and clinical techniques. Similarities and differences of the models are illustrated.　　　　　

In the book, a fabricated analytic process is offered in which an analysand, Zoe, is engaged in three analyses. Each analyst works with the techniques of one of the three field theories. Katz conveys the diverging thought processes and technical choices of each analyst and the potentially different therapeutic outcomes of the application of each model.　 In the final chapters, Katz moves beyond the specific field theories to articulate a concept of a general field which underlies the three field concepts. She explores how to use this generalized field to find a form of common ground amongst the field theories, conjecturing that this generalized concept has application beyond field theory to a greater range of psychoanalytic perspectives.　

Contemporary Psychoanalytic Field Theory provides a clear and comprehensive guide that will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, mental health professionals and clinicians, as well as philosophers, psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists.

What people refer to as "the rules," such as anonymity, neutrality and abstinence, are the lessons Freud learned from painful experience when he tried to reproduce the new, free mind-set. Friedman argues that one can see Freud making this empirical discovery gradually over the sequence of papers. He argues that we cannot understand the famous images, such the analyst-as-surgeon, or mirror, without seeing how they figure in this series of experiments. Many of the arguments in the profession turn out to be unnecessary once this is grasped. Freud's book is not a book of rules but a description of what happens if one does one thing or another; the choice is the therapist's, as is the choice to use them together to elicit the analytic experience.

In the light of this understanding, Friedman discusses aspects of treatments that are guided by these principles, such as enactment, the frame, what lies beyond interpretation, the kind of tensions that are set up between analyst and patient, the question of special analytic love, the future of analytic technique, and a possible basis for defining Freudian psychoanalysis. Finally, he makes concrete suggestions for teaching the Papers on Technique.

Freud's Papers on Technique and Contemporary Clinical Practice will appeal to all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists concerned about the empirical basis of their customary procedures and the future of their craft.