Psychoanalysis Online 4: Teleanalytic Practice, Teaching, and Clinical Research brings a systematic, qualitative research perspective to the question of the effectiveness of teletherapy, teleanalysis, and teleteaching. It suggests that, contrary to some traditional arguments, effective treatment, teaching, and supervision can take place remotely; that affect and imagination are more important than physical presence. Providing theories of therapeutic action as well as philosophical reflections, the book features examples of online clinical cases, including crisis interventions by email, and aims to stimulate openness to innovation, responsible process and review. Each contributor presents their clinical qualitative research and survey study findings. The Bernardi Three-Level Model, developed for assessing therapeutic change in the traditional analytic setting, is applied to the study of teleanalysis with different patients. It is found that, in videoconference or even in email communication, the sense of closeness in the therapeutic encounter does not depend on physical proximity but on integrity and commitment. The book concludes with research findings on the effectiveness of videoconference compared to in-the-classroom settings for teaching psychodynamics, supervising psychotherapy, and conducting psychotherapy with Chinese students. It will be of great interest to a variety of professionals and researchers who practise remotely, with particular relevance for those situated in the fields of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

Unraveling the stereotype that men's friendships are unemotional and shallow, this book provides the first detailed account of the bromance that exists among young men. Drawing on one year of ethnography and 20 in-depth interviews among a university sport team, the authors show that these men reject traditional masculine boundaries, instead prioritizing an emotional and tactile form of friendship. Chapters detail the cultural shift in society's views on bromances, showing that bromances exists as an elevated, more emotional and intimate form of friendship, existing as a further positive consequence of decreasing cultural homophobia. By focusing on sport-which has traditionally been seen as a homophobic environment with toxic constructions of manhood-the authors show that even in the most traditionally masculine of settings, young men are rethinking what male friendship looks like, what it means to be a man, and the positive impact this can have on their mental health. This book will be relevant to a number of audiences including scholars and students in masculinity studies, queer studies, and friendship studies; LGBTQ+ activists and allies with interest in straight men's friendships and sports cultures; and men's mental health advocates.

Treatment of abuse and neglect needs to be family-focused in order to reduce troubling symptoms, address family risk and relapse potential, treat cross-generational patterns, and remediate attachment deficits. Evidence-based practices are available for child and family abuse treatment, including Trauma Focused CBT, but new intervention strategies are needed that reduce family and client denial, lower defensiveness, and prevent re-traumatization during the treatment process. Family-Focused Trauma Intervention: Using Metaphor and Play with Victims of Abuse and Neglect translates issues central to abuse and neglect recovery into metaphorical stories and family-based interventions. Each chapter provides a summary of an issue or theme, one or more pertinent stories, and parallel family, group, and individual interventions. These stories and family-focused interventions help clients regulate affect in order to reduce frequency and intensity of troubling symptoms. This volume is the "missing link" in the current literature on therapy and metaphor, as it focuses specifically on parent-child interaction and trauma. The content of this book, which may be used within any theoretical framework, provides a wide variety of practitioners with a needed bridge between theory and practice.

Mental Health and Well-Being provides a sound foundation for understanding alternatives to the medical model of mental health. Students and professionals alike will find an easy to understand overview of critiques of the dominant medical model of mental health and well-being, both longstanding and more recent, and will come away from the book with a more theoretically sound, holistic conception of mental health and well-being. Written by an experienced mental health expert and replete with practical anecdotes, exercises, and examples to help readers apply the book's material, this book offers an essential foundation for developing more humane mental health practices.

Principles and Concepts of Behavioral Medicine A Global Handbook Edwin B. Fisher, Linda D. Cameron, Alan J. Christensen, Ulrike Ehlert, Brian Oldenburg, Frank J. Snoek and Yan Guo This definitive handbook brings together an international array of experts to present the broad, cells-to-society perspectives of behavioral medicine that complement conventional models of health, health care, and prevention. In addition to applications to assessment, diagnosis, intervention, and management, contributors offer innovative prevention and health promotion strategies informed by current knowledge of the mechanisms and pathways of behavior change. Its range of conceptual and practical topics illustrates the central role of behavior in health at the individual, family, community, and population levels, and its increasing importance to person-centered care. The broad perspectives on risk (e.g., stress, lifestyle), management issues (e.g., adherence, social support), and overarching concerns (e.g., inequities, health policy) makes this reference uniquely global as it addresses the following core areas: * The range of relationships and pathways between behavior and health. * Knowing in behavioral medicine; epistemic foundations. * Key influences on behavior and the relationships among behavior, health, and illness. * Approaches to changing behavior related to health. * Key areas of application in prevention and disease management. * Interventions to improve quality of life. * The contexts of behavioral medicine science and practice. Principles and Concepts of Behavioral Medicine opens out the contemporary world of behavior and health to enhance the work of behavioral medicine specialists, health psychologists, public health professionals and policymakers, as well as physicians, nurses, social workers and those in many other fields of health practice around the world.

Ruthless Winnicott is an extended exploration of the role of ruthlessness in psychic development. That survival is of no use unless it is preceded by a ruthless attack is one of D. W. Winnicott's most resonant paradoxes. The book links this with the search for subjective freedom for those traumatized by colonialism, and in doing so draws on the work of Algerian psychiatrist and revolutionary psychoanalytic thinker Frantz Fanon. Sally Swartz examines essential pieces of Winnicott's work on ruthlessness as central to the emergence of concern for the Other. She illustrates, with clinical examples, ways in which the ruthless use of the psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic space allows the patient either to enter fully into a process that allows growth, or to defend ruthlessly against the anxieties provoked by psychic change. Ruthless Winnicott also maps decolonial challenges to psychoanalytic theory, and the role of ruthlessness in protest movements demanding radical subjective change. Swartz's exploration of ruthlessness as both zest and defense in individual development and in protest movements illuminates processes of psychological collision and change. It traces links between individual trauma and collective turbulence, and maps ways in which ruthlessness is essential to subjective change. Ruthless Winnicott will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as scholars of colonialism, decolonization and post-colonialism.

Carter's Psychopathology is an accessible, engaging, and well-organized text covering the study, understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of psychological disorders. Fully integrating gender and culture in the presentation of mental disorders, and using a sensitive and inclusive language to encourage an empathic approach to psychopathology, this introductory textbook offers students a strong foundation of the socio-cultural factors influencing how we treat mental disorders. Featuring: boxes such as 'the power of words', promoting the use of respectful, empathic language, and 'the power of evidence', demonstrating that scientific evidence can answer questions about psychopathology treatments; real-world case studies and examples; 'concept checks' questions to test the student's mastery of the material covered in each section; chapter summaries listing the 'take-home' points discussed; and key terms and glossary highlighting terms that students will need to understand and become familiar with, this textbook provides a hands-on approach to the study of psychopathology.

At a historic conference in Toronto in October 1993, developmental researchers and clinicians came together for the first time to explore the implications of current knowledge of attachment. This volume is the outcome of their labors. It offers innovative approaches to the understanding of such diverse clinical topics as child abuse, borderline personality disorder, dissociation, adolescent suicide, treatment responsiveness, false memory, narrative competence, and the intergenerational transmission of trauma.

This volume covers the current status of research in the neurobiology of motivated behaviors in humans and other animals in healthy condition. This includes consideration of the psychological processes that drive motivated behavior and the anatomical, electrophysiological and neurochemical mechanisms which drive these processes and regulate behavioural output. The volume also includes chapters on pathological disturbances in motivation including apathy, or motivational deficit as well as addictions, the pathological misdirection of motivated behavior. As with the chapters on healthy motivational processes, the chapters on disease provide a comprehensive up to date review of the neurobiological abnormalities that underlie motivation, as determined by studies of patient populations as well as animal models of disease. The book closes with a section on recent developments in treatments for motivational disorders.

THE COMPLETE PSYCHOTHERAPY TREATMENT PLANNER

Of Related interest

Arthur E. Jongsma, Jr. and L. Mark Peterson

This valuable guide provides a thorough introduction to treatment planning and contains all of the necessary elements for developing formal treatment plans. In an easy-reference, prewritten format, this book presents detailed problem definitions, treatment goals, objectives, therapeutic interventions, and DSM-IVTM diagnoses for over thirty common clinical problems. Practitioners in the field will find this book to be a great time-saver and an invaluable reference.

1995 (0-471-11738-2) 176 pp.

THERASCRIBETM FOR WINDOWS(r)

The Computerized Assistant to Psychotherapy Treatment Planning.

Arthur E. Jongsma, Jr., L. Mark Peterson, and Kenneth Jongsma.

This revolutionary computerized treatment planning software lets you create detailed, customized treatment plans easily and quickly. Designed for use in both inpatient and outpatient settings, its user-friendly format allows clinicians to easily access a wide variety of behavioral definitions, treatment goals and objectives, therapeutic interventions, and DSM-IV diagnoses from its huge database. Its well-organized reports are designed to meet the requirements of Medicare, HMOs, and other third-party payers, which makes this program an important tool for evaluating and treating mental illness.

1997 (0-471-18415-2) 4 3.5 disks

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO MANAGED BEHAVIORAL HEALTHCARE

Edited by Chris E. Stout and Gerald A. Theis

Managed care has radically altered the mental health services landscape. This loose-leaf style reference manual, which is updated semiannually, offers in-depth analysis from leading experts of changes in practice management, quality and outcome issues, technology, and automation. It also addresses important legal, regulatory, fiscal, and contractual concerns. Packed with practical tools and useful sample forms, the Guide includes a comprehensive glossary of managed care terms and a complete list of managed care organizations.

1996 (0-471-12586-5) 324 pp.

THE MEASUREMENT & MANAGEMENT OF CLINICAL OUTCOMES IN MENTAL HEALTH

Once used almost exclusively by psychotherapy researchers, clinical outcomes testing is quickly becoming a standard component of mental health practice. JCAHO has mandated that outcomes must be included in mental health record keeping by the end of the decade, and the six largest managed care firms have announced plans to begin tracking clinical outcomes. While debates over the potential advantages and disadvantages of this move rage on, the fact remains that all clinicians in managed care systems will soon be compelled to incorporate outcomes assessment into their clinical routines.

The Measurement and Management of Clinical Outcomes in Mental Health prepares clinicians and administrators for this inevitability. Written by a team of experts with extensive experience in design and implementation, this timely book explores the rationale behind outcomes measurement and offers readers concrete advice and guidelines on conducting accurate and effective outcomes measurement.

In the first half of the book, the authors review the conceptual and practical aspects of outcomes management. Among the issues receiving special attention are: the psychometrics of outcomes; measuring patient satisfaction; implementation strategies; the role of consumer characteristics in outcomes management, especially in regard to needs-based planning; case-mix adjustment strategies; and barriers to implementation and strategies for overcoming them.

The second half of the book is devoted entirely to detailed case examples. Over the course of five chapters, the authors vividly illustrate their approaches to outcomes management in five different specialty areas--outpatient psychotherapy, acute psychiatric services, community services, child and adolescent services, and substance-abuse treatment services.

The first comprehensive guide to designing and implementing outcomes evaluation systems, The Measurement and Management of Clinical Outcomes in Mental Health is an important resource for all mental health practitioners as well as mental health and managed care administrators.

Clinical Topics in Teaching Psychiatry draws on classic papers previously published in BJPsych Advances, alongside newly commissioned chapters, to provide a rich overview of teaching and learning as applied to psychiatry. Written by clinicians, professors and lecturers, the book covers the direct teaching of the specialty through to educational management, coaching and mentoring. It examines diverse methods of teaching and learning, from journal clubs to simulation, and gives an updated overview of psychiatry in the foundation programme. It covers the challenges faced by trainers in recent times in delivering training virtually through webinars and remote placements. Newly commissioned chapters include how to conduct an online literature search, writing for learning and publication, delivering a good lecture and supporting trainees. Accessible throughout, the book provides much-needed guidance for busy clinicians, primarily psychiatrists, who are acting as trainers. It will also be an invaluable guide for trainees and other mental health professionals.

The American Latino: Psychodynamic Perspectives on Culture and Mental Health Issues focuses on the culture of the Hispanic population in the United States and replaces stereotypes with portrayals based on factual information. The scope of the material covered is vast and includes the topics of ethnic identity, gender roles, religion and spirituality, family resilience, and the joys and sufferings of leading a bicultural life. Opening with a thorough survey of Latin-American immigration to the United States and closing with an illustration-rich discourse on being a Hispanic-American psychotherapist in this country, the contributors examines with both normative and psychopathological realms. Help-seeking patterns, vulnerability of some Hispanic youth to drugs and gang-related affiliations, and the fine technical adjustments in conducting psychotherapy with individuals of this growing subpopulation are elucidated with great compassion and empathy. The American Latino is a shining document of the coexistence of universal similarity and cultural uniqueness of the human psyche. Reading it will enhance knowledge, enrich attunement, and sharpen therapeutic skills for working with Latin American clients.

What does it mean to be 'present and accounted for' when a family member is facing chronic illness or death? How does one define a self in relation to the ill or dying member and the family? Rooted in Murray Bowen's family systems theory, this edited volume provides conceptual ideas and applications useful to clinicians who work with families facing chronic illness or the death of a member. The text is divided into four parts: Part I provides a detailed overview of Bowen's theory perspectives on chronic illness and death and includes Murray Bowen's seminal essay "Family Reaction to Death." In Parts II and III, chapter authors draw upon Bowen theory to intimately explore their families' reactions to and experiences with death and chronic illness. The final part uses case studies from contributors' clinical practices to aid therapists in using Bowen systems perspectives in their work with clients. The chapters in this volume provide a rich and broad range of clinical application and personal experience by professionals who have substantial knowledge of and training in Bowen theory. Death and Chronic Illness in the Family is an essential resource for those interested in understanding the impact of death and loss in their professional work and in their personal lives.

Therapeutic Trances is a manifesto of the fundamental principles and techniques of Ericksonian hypnotherapy. This innovative volume lays out the principles and practice of developing relationships with patients and creating a hypnotic environment in which true healing can take place. The book offers therapists specific questions to ask and practical ideas to pursue, thereby illustrating how therapists may cooperate with clients to translate problems into solutions. Stephen Gilligan synthesizes the approaches of Erickson, Bandler & Grinder, and Bateson to bring a new perspective to the field.

Practicing Intersubjectively describes how the intersubjective systems perspective informs, shapes and guides the psychotherapeutic process. Using extensive clinical case material, Buirski illustrates the way an intersubjective systems sensibility informs and enriches clinical practice. The intersubjective systems perspective views each treatment as exquisitely context sensitive. This means that the person who comes for therapy would present differently to different therapists and the two of them would construct different processes. Therapists themselves are not interchangeable, and the intersubjective field that the two participants create together would be quite different from the field created by any other pair. Practicing Intersubjectively, with the focus on attuning and articulating to the contextual construction of personal worlds of experience enables a different therapy process to unfold than occurs in traditional 1-person, authority based treatment approaches and is uniquely suited to working with people from diverse cultural backgrounds and those suffering from such challenging concerns as trauma and prejudice.

This is an insightful and essential new volume for academics and professionals interested in the lived experience of those who struggle with disordered eating. Embodiment and Eating Disorders situates the complicated - and increasingly prevalent - topic of disordered eating at the crossroads of many academic disciplines, articulating a notion of embodied selfhood that rejects the separation of mind and body and calls for a feminist, existential, and sociopolitically aware approach to eating disorder treatment. Experts from a variety of backgrounds and specializations examine theories of embodiment, current empirical research, and practical examples and strategies for prevention and treatment.

There are many types of interpersonal violence that can lead to short- and long-term physical and psychological effects on those involved. Reducing Interpersonal Violence reflects on the World Health Organization's stance that interpersonal violence is a public health problem and considers what steps can realistically be taken towards its reduction. Clive Hollin examines interpersonal violence across a range of settings, from bullying at school and in the workplace, smacking children and partner violence in the home, to sexual and other forms of criminal violence in the community. This book summarises the research on evidence-based strategies to reduce violence and shows that reducing interpersonal violence can have a positive effect on people's wellbeing and may save a great deal of public expenditure. This book is an invaluable resource for students and researchers in the fields of psychology, criminology, law, and police studies, as well as professionals such as probation staff and forensic psychologists.

This comprehensive resource outlines the latest research and recommendations to provide you with the requisite knowledge, skills, and awareness to treat TNGC clients with competent and affirming care. As you know, TNGC clients have different needs based on who they are in relation to the world. Written by three psychologists who specialize in working with the TGNC population, this important book draws on the perspective that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for working with TNGC clients. It offers interventions tailored to developmental stages and situational factors-for example, cultural intersections such as race, class, and religion. This book provides up-to-date information on language, etiquette, and appropriate communication and conduct in treating TGNC clients, and discusses the history, cultural context, and ethical and legal issues that can arise in working with gender diverse individuals in a clinical setting. You'll also find information about informed consent approaches that call for a shift in the role of the mental health provider in the position of assessment and referral for the purposes of gender-affirming medical care (such as hormones, surgery, and other procedures). As changes in recent transgender health care and insurance coverage have provided increased access for a broader range of consumers, it is essential to understand transgender and gender nonconforming clients' different needs. This book provides practical exercises and skills you can use to help TNGC clients thrive.

This practice-focused resource demonstrates effective uses of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy methods and techniques in treating clients across various conditions, settings, and subgroups. Client problems featured include both those often associated with REBT (e.g., anxiety, depression, anger) and others noted for complex presentations, difficulties with engagement, and impasses (e.g., addictions, suicidality, psychosis). Challenging treatment populations are covered as well, including women, couples, families, elder and pediatric clients, clients with disabilities, and sexual minorities. These stimulating cases show how well the diversity of clients and their concerns is matched by the flexibility of techniques and applications within REBT. In each chapter, expert therapists: * Identify concepts in REBT especially suited to approaching the problem or population. * Outline best REBT practices in assessment and treatment of the client(s). * Survey evidence-based non-REBT approaches most useful in complementing REBT. * Provide a brief case example representing appropriate REBT in action. * Assess their use of REBT in treating the problem or members of the population. A bedrock text for REBT scholar-practitioners, REBT with Diverse Populations and Problems is a testimony to the continuing usefulness of the therapy and its adaptability as client populations emerge and as the contexts of client problems evolve in response to a demanding world.

Developmental theory is the essence of any psychodynamic psychother apy, and certainly of psychoanalysis. It is through an understanding of progressive life events, and the way these events relate to associated biological and social events, that we come to understand both psycho pathology and psychological strengths. For a long time we have needed a clinically oriented book that surveys normal development in both childhood and adulthood. This book should be particularly helpful to all mental health professionals whose daily work requires a constant awareness and appraisal of devel opmental issues. Dr. Colarusso has integrated and summarized a tremen dous amount of theoretical, empirical, and clinical material in a format that makes it come alive through clinical examples. This book should be of great interest to all students of human behav ior as well as to seasoned clinicians. SHERWYN M. WOODS, M. D., PH. D. vii Preface Each year as I gave a lecture series on child and adult development to the adult and child psychiatric residents at the University of California at San Diego, someone inevitably would ask, "Is there a book that I could understand that has all of this information in it?" I would reply that I did not know of any single source, but I could refer the person to many articles and books on development."

The central problem in the study of addiction is to explain why people repeatedly behave in ways they know are bad for them. For much of the previous century and until the present day, the majority of scientific and medical attempts to solve this problem were couched in terms of involuntary behavior; if people behave in ways they do not want, then this must be because the behavior is beyond their control and outside the realm of choice. An opposing tradition, which finds current support among scientists and scholars as well as members of the general public, is that so-called addictive behavior reflects an ordinary choice just like any other and that the concept of addiction is a myth. The editors and authors of this book tend to take neither view. There has been an increasing recognition in recent literature on addiction that restricting possible conceptions of it to either of these extreme positions is unhelpful and is retarding progress on understanding the nature of addiction and what could be done about it. This book contains a range of views from philosophy, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology and the law on what exactly this middle ground between free choice and no choice consists of and what its implications are for theory, practice and policy on addiction. The result amounts to a profound change in our thinking on addiction and how its devastating consequences can be ameliorated. Addiction and Choice is a thought provoking new volume for all those with an interest in this global issue.

Designed for clinicians from a variety of backgrounds, this handbook provides useful information regarding long-term treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. It is intended not only for psychiatrists and neurologists, but also for primary care physicians and non-physician mental health professionals. The book examines maintenance treatment for a comprehensive list of mental illnesses including biopolar disorders, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and dementia. It provides the clinician with the information needed to select and manage the effective long-range treatment of their patients.

Community psychology emphasizes an ecological approach to mental health by focusing on the individual in the environment and the influences that shape and change behavior. Becoming Ecological brings together the work of James G. Kelly, one of the founders of community psychology and among the field's national leaders.
The volume unites thirteen of Kelly's publications from 1968 to 2002 as well as four new essays on current issues in the field: the theory, research, practice, and education of community psychologists. Kelly introduces the work by offering connections between his personal experiences and the topics he chose to focus on throughout his long career. He begins each of the thirteen essays with commentary that sets the article in its original context so that the reader has a historical perspective on why certain ideas were salient at a particular time and how they are still timely today. Kelly concludes with a "summing up" section integrating the previously published articles with the four new essays. Throughout, he presents examples of how to plan and carry out research and practice in the community. The principles underlying the examples both enhance the relevance of the research and practice and increase the potential of community residents to use the findings for their own purposes.
A compendium of classic statements of community psychology's philosophical and historical underpinnings, Becoming Ecological is a must-read for scholars and practitioners of community psychology and for those in the fields of public health, social work, community development, education, and applied anthropology.

Self-examination and self-critique: for psychoanalytic patients, this is the conduit to growth. Yet within the field, psychoanalysts haven't sufficiently utilized their own methodology or subjected their own preferred approaches to systematic and critical self-examination. Across theoretical divides, psychoanalytic writers and clinicians have too often responded to criticism with defensiveness rather than reflectivity. De-Idealizing Relational Theory attempts to rectify this for the relational field. This book is a first in the history of psychoanalysis; it takes internal dissension and difference seriously rather than defensively. Rather than saying that the other's reading of relational theory is wrong, distorted, or a misrepresentation, this book is interested in querying how theory lends itself to such characterizations. How have psychoanalysts participated in conveying this portrayal to their critics? Might this dissension illuminate blind-spot(s) and highlight new areas of growth? It's a challenge to engage in psychoanalytic self-critique. To do so requires that we move beyond our own assumptions and deeply held beliefs about what moves the treatment process and how we can best function within it. To step aside from ourselves, to question the assumed, to take the critiques of others seriously, demands more than an absence of defensiveness. It requires that we step into the shoes of the psychoanalytic Other and suspend not only our theories, but our emotional investment in them. There are a range of ways in which our authors took up that challenge. Some revisted the assumptions that underlay early relational thinking and expanded their sources (Greenberg & Aron). Some took up specific aspects of relational technique and unpacked their roots and evolution (Mark, Cooper). Some offered an expanded view of what constitutes relational theory and technique (Seligman, Corbett, Grossmark). Some more directly critiqued aspects of relational theory and technique (Berman, Stern). And some took on a broader critique of relational theory or technique (Layton, Slochower). Unsurprisingly, no single essay examined the totality of relational thinking, its theoretical and clinical implications. This task would be herculean both practically and psychologically. We're all invested in aspects of what we think and what we do; at best, we examine some, but never all of our assumptions and ideas. We recognize, retrospectively, how very challenging a task this was; it asked writers to engage in what we might think of as a self-analysis of the countertransference. Taken together these essays represent a significant effort at self-critique and we are enormously proud of it. Each chapter critically assesses and examines aspects of relational theory and technique, considers its current state and its relations to other psychoanalytic approaches. De-Idealizing Relational Theory will appeal to all relational psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

Self-examination and self-critique: for psychoanalytic patients, this is the conduit to growth. Yet within the field, psychoanalysts haven't sufficiently utilized their own methodology or subjected their own preferred approaches to systematic and critical self-examination. Across theoretical divides, psychoanalytic writers and clinicians have too often responded to criticism with defensiveness rather than reflectivity. De-Idealizing Relational Theory attempts to rectify this for the relational field. This book is a first in the history of psychoanalysis; it takes internal dissension and difference seriously rather than defensively. Rather than saying that the other's reading of relational theory is wrong, distorted, or a misrepresentation, this book is interested in querying how theory lends itself to such characterizations. How have psychoanalysts participated in conveying this portrayal to their critics? Might this dissension illuminate blind-spot(s) and highlight new areas of growth? It's a challenge to engage in psychoanalytic self-critique. To do so requires that we move beyond our own assumptions and deeply held beliefs about what moves the treatment process and how we can best function within it. To step aside from ourselves, to question the assumed, to take the critiques of others seriously, demands more than an absence of defensiveness. It requires that we step into the shoes of the psychoanalytic Other and suspend not only our theories, but our emotional investment in them. There are a range of ways in which our authors took up that challenge. Some revisted the assumptions that underlay early relational thinking and expanded their sources (Greenberg & Aron). Some took up specific aspects of relational technique and unpacked their roots and evolution (Mark, Cooper). Some offered an expanded view of what constitutes relational theory and technique (Seligman, Corbett, Grossmark). Some more directly critiqued aspects of relational theory and technique (Berman, Stern). And some took on a broader critique of relational theory or technique (Layton, Slochower). Unsurprisingly, no single essay examined the totality of relational thinking, its theoretical and clinical implications. This task would be herculean both practically and psychologically. We're all invested in aspects of what we think and what we do; at best, we examine some, but never all of our assumptions and ideas. We recognize, retrospectively, how very challenging a task this was; it asked writers to engage in what we might think of as a self-analysis of the countertransference. Taken together these essays represent a significant effort at self-critique and we are enormously proud of it. Each chapter critically assesses and examines aspects of relational theory and technique, considers its current state and its relations to other psychoanalytic approaches. De-Idealizing Relational Theory will appeal to all relational psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.