Insight and "Change." The problematic relationship between these two concepts, to which the reality of psychoanalytic patients who fully understand maladaptive patterns without being able to change them attests, has dogged psychoanalysis for a century. Building on the integrative object relations model set for in "Transcending the Self" (1999), Frank Summers turns to Winnicott's notion of "potential space" in order to elaborate a fresh clinical approach for transforming insight into new ways of being and relating. For Summers, understanding occurs within transference space, but the latter must be translated into potential space if insight is to give rise to change in the world outside the consulting room. Within potential space, Summers holds, the analyst's task shifts from understanding the present to aiding and abetting the patient in creating a new future. This means that the analyst must draw on her hard-won understanding of the patient to construct a vision of who the patient can become. Lasting therapeutic change grows out of the analyst's and patient's collaboration in developing new possibilities of being that draw on the patient's affective predispositions and buried aspects of self.
In the second half of the book, Summers applies this model of therapeutic action to common clinical syndromes revolving around depression, narcissistic injuries, somatic symptoms, and internalized bad objects. Here we find vivid documentation of specific clinical strategies in which the therapeutic use of potential space gives rise to new ways of being and relating which, in turn, anchor the creation of a new sense of self.

"Insight" and "Change." The problematic relationship between these two concepts, to which the reality of psychoanalytic patients who fully understand maladaptive patterns without being able to change them attests, has dogged psychoanalysis for a century. Building on the integrative object relations model set forth in Transcending the Self (1999), Frank Summers turns to Winnicott's notion of "potential space" in order to elaborate a fresh clinical approach for transforming insight into new ways of being and relating. For Summers, understanding occurs within transference space, but the latter must be translated into potential space if insight is to give rise to change in the world outside the consulting room. Within potential space, Summers holds, the analyst's task shifts from understanding the present to aiding and abetting the patient in creating a new future. This means that the analyst must draw on her hard-won understanding of the patient to construct a vision of who the patient can become. Lasting therapeutic change grows out of the analyst's and patient's collaboration in developing new possibilities of being that draw on the patient's affective predispositions and buried aspects of self. In the second half of the book, Summers applies this model of therapeutic action to common clinical syndromes revolving around depression, narcissistic injuries, somatic symptoms, and internalized bad objects. Here we find vivid documentation of specific clinical strategies in which the therapeutic use of potential space gives rise to new ways of being and relating which, in turn, anchor the creation of a new sense of self.

Psychoanalytic therapy is distinguished by its immersion in the world of the experiencing subject. In The Psychoanalytic Vision, Frank Summers argues that analytic therapy and its unique epistemology is a worldview that stands in clear opposition to the hegemonic cultural value system of objectification, quantification, and materialism. The Psychoanalytic Vision situates psychoanalysis as a voice of the rebel, affirming the importance of the subjective in contrast to the culture of objectification. Founded on phenomenological philosophy from which it derives its unique epistemology and ethical grounding, psychoanalytic therapy as a hermeneutic of the experiential world has no role for reified concepts. Consequently, fundamental analytic concepts such as "the unconscious" and "the intrapsychic," are reconceptualized to eliminate reifying elements. The essence of The Psychoanalytic Vision is the freshness of its theoretical and clinical approach as a hermeneutic of the experiential world. Fundamental clinical phenomena, such as dreams, time, and the experience of the other, are reformulated, and these theoretical shifts are illustrated with a variety of vivid case descriptions. The last part of the book is devoted to the surreptitious role beliefs and values of contemporary culture play in many forms of psychopathology. For clinicians, The Psychoanalytic Vision offers a fresh clinical theory based on the consistent application of the subjectification of human experience, and for scholars, a worldview that provides the framework for a potentially fruitful cross-fertilization of ideas with cognate disciplines.

Psychoanalytic therapy is distinguished by its immersion in the world of the experiencing subject. In The Psychoanalytic Vision, Frank Summers argues that analytic therapy and its unique epistemology is a worldview that stands in clear opposition to the hegemonic cultural value system of objectification, quantification, and materialism. The Psychoanalytic Vision situates psychoanalysis as a voice of the rebel, affirming the importance of the subjective in contrast to the culture of objectification. Founded on phenomenological philosophy from which it derives its unique epistemology and ethical grounding, psychoanalytic therapy as a hermeneutic of the experiential world has no role for reified concepts. Consequently, fundamental analytic concepts such as "the unconscious" and "the intrapsychic," are reconceptualized to eliminate reifying elements. The essence of The Psychoanalytic Vision is the freshness of its theoretical and clinical approach as a hermeneutic of the experiential world. Fundamental clinical phenomena, such as dreams, time, and the experience of the other, are reformulated, and these theoretical shifts are illustrated with a variety of vivid case descriptions. The last part of the book is devoted to the surreptitious role beliefs and values of contemporary culture play in many forms of psychopathology. For clinicians, The Psychoanalytic Vision offers a fresh clinical theory based on the consistent application of the subjectification of human experience, and for scholars, a worldview that provides the framework for a potentially fruitful cross-fertilization of ideas with cognate disciplines.

Despite the popularity of object relations theories, these theories are often abstract, with the relation between theory and clinical technique left vague and unclear. Now, in Transcending the Self: An Object Relations Model of Psychoanalytic Therapy, Summers answers the need for an integrative object relations model that can be understood and applied by the clinician in the daily conduct of psychoanalytic therapy. Drawing on recent infancy research, developmental psychology, and the works of major theorists, including Bollas, Benjamin, Fairbairn, Guntrip, Kohut, and Winnicott, Summers melds diverse object-relational contributions into a coherent viewpoint with broad clinical applications. The object relations model emerges as a distinct amalgam of interpersonal/relational and interpretive perspectives. It is a model that can help patients undertake the most gratifying and treacherous of personality journeys: that aiming at the transcendence of the childhood self. Self-transcendence, in Summers' sense, means moving beyond the profound limitations of early life via the therapeutically mediated creation of a newly meaningful and authentic sense of self. Following two chapters that present the empirical and theoretical basis of the model, he launches into clinical applications by presenting the concept of therapeutic action that derives from the model. Then, in three successive chapters, he applies the model to patients traditionally conceptualized as borderline, narcissistic, and neurotic. He concludes with a chapter that addresses more broadly the craft of conducting psychoanalytic therapy. Filled with richly detailed case discussions, Transcending the Self provides practicing clinicians with a powerful demonstration of how psychoanalytic therapy informed by an object relations model can effect radical personality change. It is an outstanding example of integrative theorizing in the service of a real-world therapeutic approach.

This volume is the first concentrated effort to offer a philosophical critique of relational and intersubjective perspectives in contemporary psychoanalytic thought. The distinguished group of scholars and clinicians assembled here are largely preoccupied with tracing the theoretical underpinnings of relational psychoanalysis, its divergence from traditional psychoanalytic paradigms, implications for clinical reform and therapeutic practice, and its intersection with alternative psychoanalytic approaches that are co-extensive with the relational turn. Because relational and intersubjective perspectives have not been properly critiqued from within their own schools of discourse, many of the contributors assembled here subject advocates of the American Middle School to a thorough critique of their theoretical assumptions, limitations, and practices. If not for any other reason, this project is of timely significance for the field of psychoanalysis and the competing psychotherapies because it attempts to address the philosophical undergirding of the relational movement.