This book introduces the clinical concept of analytic contact. This is a term that describes the therapeutic method of investigation that makes up psychoanalytic treatment. The field has been in debate for decades regarding what constitutes psychoanalysis. This usually centers on theoretical ideals regarding analyzability, goals, or procedure and external criteria such as frequency or use of couch. Instead, the concept of analytic contact looks at what takes place with a patient in the clinical situation. Each chapter in this book follows a wide spectrum of cases and clinical situations where hard to reach patients are provided the best opportunity for health and healing through the establishment of analytic contact. This case material closely tracks each patient's phantasies, and transference mechanisms which work to either increase, oppose, embrace, or neutralize, analytic contact. In addition, the fundamental internal conflicts all patients struggle with between love, hate, and knowledge are represented by extensive case reports.

This clear and thoughtful book by Robert Waska provides an accessible introduction to Projective Identification and the role it plays in internal and external life. Waska explores how Projective Identification is the foundation for much of psychic life, driving internal phantasy, influencing interpersonal behavior, and contributing to the transference/countertransference environment. This book contains several case studies which explore and expand on the concepts described and which demonstrate how a psychotherapist can understand, contain, and interpret the states patients seek help with. Additionally, this book introduces a clinical technique which is intended to tame the underlying emotional conflicts. Part of the popular Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series, this book will be essential to students of psychoanalysis, as well as academics and practitioners familiarising themselves with Projective Identification in a clinical setting.

The book takes the reader "into the trenches" with the author as he describes his psychoanalytic work with a variety of patients with difficult and complex conditions. The reader becomes familiar with the clinical and theoretical difficulties psychoanalysts encounter in their day to day practice with such patients, especially the counter-transference reactions so common with patients who rely on rigid defense systems. While presented from a Kleinian viewpoint, the book is written in a very inclusive and flexible manner that brings together a variety of analytic thought and provides easy access to the reader unfamiliar with Kleinian theory. The book provides a wealth of in-depth clinical material including severe personality disorders, chronic depressive conditions, pathological phantasies of grief and loss, and destructive states of narcissism. Each chapter provides a vivid look into the workings of psychoanalytic treatment in the context of the contemporary focus on understanding projective identification, enactment, acting out, and the careful and thoughtful interpretive working through of these complex clinical situations. Much of the book also addresses how to notice, learn from, and utilize these volatile moments. Indeed, once properly understood, what once was fertile ground for the analyst's acting out can become a bridge to better translating and interpreting the patient's core anxieties and providing a therapeutic experience of change and growth. This volume shows the therapeutic power the modern Kleinian approach can have with patients throughout the diagnostic spectrum. By attending to the interpersonal, transactional, and intra-psychic levels of transference, counter-transference and unconscious phantasy with consistent here-and-now and in-the-moment interpretation, the Kleinian method can be therapeutically successful with severely neurotic, borderline, and narcissistic patients. By making the goal of psychoanalytic treatment the gradual establishment of analyst contact, a broader range of patients can be helped and understood.

Real People, Real Problems, Real Solutions offers a clear introduction to psychoanalytic practice from a Kleinian perspective and shows how the modern Kleinian works with the most taxing and least conforming of their patients.
Illustrated by extensive case material this book:
*reviews Freud's original theoretical concepts and examines Klein's contributions to the field of psychoanalysis, clarifying and comparing the two approaches in the clinical setting.
*identifies and explores who makes up the psychoanalyst's most challenging case load and demonstrates how the Kleinian psychoanalytic approach is helpful to these individuals.
*discusses the current state of traditional methods of training at psychoanalytic institutes, which are shown to be in need of renewal and critical restructuring.
Real People, Real Problems, Real Solutions shows how the average psychoanalyst and psychotherapist face many difficult patients in a typical days work. Together with its questioning of what really constitutes psychoanalytic therapy, this is a refreshing read for all practising and training psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.

This clear and thoughtful book by Robert Waska provides an accessible introduction to Projective Identification and the role it plays in internal and external life. Waska explores how Projective Identification is the foundation for much of psychic life, driving internal phantasy, influencing interpersonal behavior, and contributing to the transference/countertransference environment. This book contains several case studies which explore and expand on the concepts described and which demonstrate how a psychotherapist can understand, contain, and interpret the states patients seek help with. Additionally, this book introduces a clinical technique which is intended to tame the underlying emotional conflicts. Part of the popular Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series, this book will be essential to students of psychoanalysis, as well as academics and practitioners familiarising themselves with Projective Identification in a clinical setting.

How do Kleinians work with projective identification?
The concept of projective identification, first introduced by Melanie Klein in 1946, has been widely studied by psychoanalysts of different persuasions. However, these explorations have neglected to show what Kleinians actually do with the projective identification phenomenon in their daily casework.
Projective Identification in the Clinical Setting presents a detailed study of Kleinian literature, setting a background of understanding for the day-to-day analytic atmosphere in which projective identification takes place. Extensive clinical material illustrates issues clearly identified for clinical practice, including:
* the ways projective identification occurs within various psychological constellations;
* the role of the analyst in countertransference experiences;
* work with difficult patients who experience life within a paranoid or psychotic framework;
* the path of projective identification and pathological greed.
This comprehensive account of Kleinian literature on projective identification and wealth of clinical material provide a powerful and clear account of clinical practice around projective identification that all practitioners, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and trainees will benefit from reading.
Robert Waska has worked in the field of psychology for the last twenty-five years. Certified as a psychoanalyst and psychoanalytic psychotherapist from the Institute of Psychoanalytic Studies, Dr Waska maintains a full-time private practice in San Francisco and Marin County.

Modern Kleinian Therapy is a model of effective psychoanalytic work that offers relief to deep internal conflicts by establishing and maintaining analytic contact, and beginning to unravel, modify, and heal turbulent and torn minds. This book defines Modern Kleinian Therapy as a modality for treating severely affected patients in a fairly traditional psychoanalytic manner, even when the environment or frequency of sessions are compromised. Chapter by chapter the book provides detailed clinical material to illustrate the complex dynamics that unfold when working with more closed off patients, and each case report shows the often limited clinical situations that the contemporary analyst must contend with. The book's detailed material serves to emphasize the nature of psychoanalytic work with individuals and couples, who otherwise rarely find their way to healthy attachment or reciprocal whole object relational harmony. Included in the book: * Technical and theoretical methods of Modern Kleinian Therapy * Psychoanalytic treatments to modify internal object relational conflicts * The Modern Kleinian Therapy approach to couple's treatment * The value of analytic contact. A Practical Casebook of Time-Limited Psychoanalytic Work: A Modern Kleinian Approach introduces new aspects of Kleinian work and offers a contemporary view on Kleinian techniques and concepts. It will be valuable reading for psychotherapists, mental health workers, and psychoanalytic therapists.

This book introduces the clinical concept of analytic contact. This is a term that describes the therapeutic method of investigation that makes up psychoanalytic treatment. The field has been in debate for decades regarding what constitutes psychoanalysis. This usually centers on theoretical ideals regarding analyzability, goals, or procedure and e

This book serves two purposes. First, it provides the psychoanalyst or psychotherapist with a more flexible method of practicing psychoanalysis. This is the clinical approach of "analytic contact", a technical stance in which more patients can be reached in a deeper and more helpful manner. Analytic contact is an operationally robust Kleinian appro

The Modern Kleinian Approach to Psychoanalytic Technique: Clinical Illustrations describes how today's practitioner typically treats a number of types of very disturbed and hard-to-reach patients who, while prone to intense acting out and early termination, are in great need of in-depth psychological reorganization. Many cases barely get off the ground due to levels of pathological conflict and destructive phantasy that make self/object connection extremely fragile. However, the modern Kleinian approach makes it possible to establish analytic contact within even the most chaotic situations and create a therapeutic experience that can be significant and meaningful. In doing so, there can be a healing process and the birth of new object relational experiences and interpersonal exchanges. Robert Waska details a more flexible method of practicing psychoanalysis, Analytic Contact, an approach that brings the healing possibilities of psychoanalysis to the more disturbed patients who tend to fill private practice offices. In addition, Analytic Contact enables the clinician to reach populations that are not usually considered easily treatable by the psychoanalytic method, including psychotic patients, couples who are seeking help with marital issues, and chronic borderline and narcissistic individuals.

The Concept of Analytic Contact presents practitioners with new ways to assist the often severely disturbed patients that come to see them in both private and institutional settings. In this book Robert Waska outlines the use of psychoanalysis as a method of engagement that can be utilised with or without the addition of multiple weekly visits and the analytic couch. The chapters in this book follow a wide spectrum of cases and clinical situations where hard to reach patients are provided with the best opportunity for health and healing through the establishment of analytic contact. Divided into four parts, this book covers: the concept of analytic contact caution and reluctance concerning psychological engagement drugs, mutilation, and psychic fragmentation clinical reality, psychoanalysis and the utility of analytic contact. Analytic contact is demonstrated to be a valuable clinical approach to working analytically with a complicated group of patients in a successful manner. It will be of great interest to all practitioners in the field of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

"Real People, Real Problems, Real Solutions" offers a clear introduction to psychoanalytic practice from a Kleinian perspective and shows how the modern Kleinian works with the most taxing and least conforming of their patients.
Illustrated by extensive case material this book:
*reviews Freud's original theoretical concepts and examines Klein's contributions to the field of psychoanalysis, clarifying and comparing the two approaches in the clinical setting.
*identifies and explores who makes up the psychoanalyst's most challenging case load and demonstrates how the Kleinian psychoanalytic approach is helpful to these individuals.
*discusses the current state of traditional methods of training at psychoanalytic institutes, which are shown to be in need of renewal and critical restructuring.
"Real People, Real Problems, Real Solutions" shows how the average psychoanalyst and psychotherapist face many difficult patients in a typical days work. Together with its questioning of what really constitutes psychoanalytic therapy, this is a refreshing read for all practicing and training psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.

Taking as his starting point Melanie Klein's concept of the paranoid-schizoid position, and succinctly reviewing subsequent developments within the Kleinian perspective, the author formulates a distinctive and subtle argument concentrated on the topic of primitive loss. It is the author's conviction that the experience of loss has a primacy within the paranoid-schizoid position but that this has received insufficient and inadequate recognition, with significant implications for analytic technique. With this standpoint as his orienting focus, the author provides a finely-textured and penetrating discussion of such issues as projective identification, symbolization, transference and counter transference. A thoughtful and perceptive examination of theoretical issues is buttressed with substantial illustrative case material throughout. Calling for further work to be done in refining and clarifying the understanding of loss, and its intrapsychic, interpersonal and technical ramifications, the present volume represents a significant contribution and stimulus to that task

Modern Kleinian Therapy is a model of effective psychoanalytic work that offers relief to deep internal conflicts by establishing and maintaining analytic contact, and beginning to unravel, modify, and heal turbulent and torn minds. This book defines Modern Kleinian Therapy as a modality for treating severely affected patients in a fairly traditional psychoanalytic manner, even when the environment or frequency of sessions are compromised. Chapter by chapter the book provides detailed clinical material to illustrate the complex dynamics that unfold when working with more closed off patients, and each case report shows the often limited clinical situations that the contemporary analyst must contend with. The book's detailed material serves to emphasize the nature of psychoanalytic work with individuals and couples, who otherwise rarely find their way to healthy attachment or reciprocal whole object relational harmony. Included in the book: * Technical and theoretical methods of Modern Kleinian Therapy * Psychoanalytic treatments to modify internal object relational conflicts * The Modern Kleinian Therapy approach to couple's treatment * The value of analytic contact. A Practical Casebook of Time-Limited Psychoanalytic Work: A Modern Kleinian Approach introduces new aspects of Kleinian work and offers a contemporary view on Kleinian techniques and concepts. It will be valuable reading for psychotherapists, mental health workers, and psychoanalytic therapists.

This Book serves two purposes. First, it provides the psychoanalyst or psychotherapist with a more flexible method of practicing psychoanalysis. This is the clinical approach of Analytic Contact, a technical stance in which more patients can be reached in a deeper and more helpful manner. Analytic Contact is an operationally robust Kleinian approach for the real world of private practice and targets the combination of internal and external factors there are consistently at play with all patients. The second aim of this book is to examine specific groups of patients that present unique challenges to the psychoanalyst. These populations are examined and new and creative ways of working with them are introduced. Building on the work of his last two books, the author invites the reader to discover the clinical value and technical utility of Analytic Contact.

This work represents a watershed in Kleinian theory. The Author beautifully integrates traditional Kleinian concepts, particularly those of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, with the occurrence of infantile and childhood trauma and / or deprivations. His clinical examples are extraordinarily convincing. All mental health workers will greatly benefit from reading this book
James Grotstein
Confusing clinical standoffs, loyalty to self-destruction and abrupt terminations are challenging and under-examined problems for the modern psychoanalytic practitioner. The Danger of Change is a timely book that addresses the so-called resistant patient so many clinicians are familiar with.
Robert Waska blends theory based on Melanie Klein's classical stance with the more contemporary Freudian/Kleinian school, to demonstrate how to understand patients that are resistant to progress. Divided into four sections, this book covers.
- Reluctant Patients and the Fight Against Change: Caught Between the Paranoid and Depressive World
- Greed and the Dangers of Change
- Interruptions to the Process of Change: Loss, Envy, and the Death Instinct
- Working Toward Change in the Face of Overwhelming Odds
Extensive and detailed clinical material is used to bring clarity to subjects including symbolism, conflict resolution, projective identification, the depressive and paranoid positions, change and trust.
"The Danger of Change" brings hope and clarity to cases involving patients who experience progress as a threat to their emotional wellbeing. It will be of great interest to all practicing psychoanalysts, as well as those studying psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Taking as his starting point Melanie Klein's concept of the paranoid-schizoid position, and succinctly reviewing subsequent developments within the Kleinian perspective, the author formulates a distinctive and subtle argument concentrated on the topic of primitive loss. It is the author's conviction that the experience of loss has a primacy within the paranoid-schizoid position but that this has received insufficient and inadequate recognition, with significant implications for analytic technique. With this standpoint as his orienting focus, the author provides a finely-textured and penetrating discussion of such issues as projective identification, symbolization, transference and counter transference. A thoughtful and perceptive examination of theoretical issues is buttressed with substantial illustrative case material throughout. Calling for further work to be done in refining and clarifying the understanding of loss, and its intrapsychic, interpersonal and technical ramifications, the present volume represents a significant contribution and stimulus to that task

Most contemporary psychoanalysts and psychotherapists see each patient once or twice a week at most. As many patients have reached a marked state of distress before seeking treatment, this gives the analyst a difficult task to accomplish in what is a limited amount of time. A Casebook of Psychotherapy Practice with Challenging Patients: A modern Kleinian approach sets out a model for working with quite significantly disturbed, distressed, or resistant patients in a very limited time, which Robert Waska has termed "Modern Kleinian Therapy." Each chapter provides a vivid look into the moment-to-moment workings of a contemporary Kleinian focus on understanding projective identification, enactment, and acting out as well as the careful and thoughtful interpretive work necessary in these complex clinical situations. Individual psychotherapeutic work is represented throughout the book alongside instructive reports of psychoanalytic work with disturbed couples, and the more challenging patient is illustrated with several comprehensive reviews of films that follow such hard-to-reach individuals. A Casebook of Psychotherapy Practice with Challenging Patients: A modern Kleinian approach is filled with a combination of contemporary theory building, a wealth of clinical vignettes, and practical advice. It is a hands-on guide for psychoanalysts and therapists who need to get to grips with complex psychoanalytic concepts in a short time and shows the therapeutic power the Modern Kleinian Therapy approach can have and how it can enable them to work most effectively with difficult patients. Robert Waska LPCC, MFT, PhD is an analytic member at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and conducts a full-time private psychoanalytic practice for individuals and couples in San Francisco and Marin County, California. He is the author of thirteen published textbooks on Kleinian psychoanalytic theory and technique, is a contributing author for three psychology texts, and has published over a hundred articles in professional journals.

Most contemporary psychoanalysts and psychotherapists see each patient once or twice a week at most. As many patients have reached a marked state of distress before seeking treatment, this gives the analyst a difficult task to accomplish in what is a limited amount of time. A Casebook of Psychotherapy Practice with Challenging Patients: A modern Kleinian approach sets out a model for working with quite significantly disturbed, distressed, or resistant patients in a very limited time, which Robert Waska has termed "Modern Kleinian Therapy." Each chapter provides a vivid look into the moment-to-moment workings of a contemporary Kleinian focus on understanding projective identification, enactment, and acting out as well as the careful and thoughtful interpretive work necessary in these complex clinical situations. Individual psychotherapeutic work is represented throughout the book alongside instructive reports of psychoanalytic work with disturbed couples, and the more challenging patient is illustrated with several comprehensive reviews of films that follow such hard-to-reach individuals. A Casebook of Psychotherapy Practice with Challenging Patients: A modern Kleinian approach is filled with a combination of contemporary theory building, a wealth of clinical vignettes, and practical advice. It is a hands-on guide for psychoanalysts and therapists who need to get to grips with complex psychoanalytic concepts in a short time and shows the therapeutic power the Modern Kleinian Therapy approach can have and how it can enable them to work most effectively with difficult patients. Robert Waska LPCC, MFT, PhD is an analytic member at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and conducts a full-time private psychoanalytic practice for individuals and couples in San Francisco and Marin County, California. He is the author of thirteen published textbooks on Kleinian psychoanalytic theory and technique, is a contributing author for three psychology texts, and has published over a hundred articles in professional journals.

One of therapy's greatest challenges is the moment of transference, when a patient unconsciously transfers emotion or desire to a new and present object--in some cases the therapist. During the course of treatment, a patient's projections and the analyst's struggle to divert them can stress, distort, or contaminate the therapeutic relationship. It may lead to various forms of enactment, in which the therapist unconsciously colludes with the client in interpretation and treatment, or it can lead to projective identification, in which the client imposes negative feelings and behaviors onto the therapist, further interfering with analysis and intervention.

Drawing on decades of clinical case experience, Robert Waska leads practitioners through the steps of phantasy and transference mechanisms and their ability to increase, oppose, embrace, or neutralize analytic contact. Operating from a psychoanalytic perspective, he explains how to cope professionally with moments of transference and maintain an objective interpretive stance within the ongoing matrix of projective identification, countertransference, and enactment. Each chapter discusses a wide spectrum of cases and clinical situations, describing in detail the processes that invite a playing out of the patient's phantasies and the work required to reestablish balance. Refreshingly candid, Waska recognizes the imperfections of analysis yet reaffirms its potential for greater psychological integration and stability for the patient. He acknowledges the limits and frequent roadblocks of working with difficult patients, such as those who suffer from psychic retreat, paranoid phantasies, and depressive anxieties, yet he indicates an effective path for resetting the clinical moment and redirecting the course for treatment.

One of therapy's greatest challenges is the moment of transference, when a patient unconsciously transfers emotion or desire to a new and present object--in some cases the therapist. During the course of treatment, a patient's projections and the analyst's struggle to divert them can stress, distort, or contaminate the therapeutic relationship. It may lead to various forms of enactment, in which the therapist unconsciously colludes with the client in interpretation and treatment, or it can lead to projective identification, in which the client imposes negative feelings and behaviors onto the therapist, further interfering with analysis and intervention.

Drawing on decades of clinical case experience, Robert Waska leads practitioners through the steps of phantasy and transference mechanisms and their ability to increase, oppose, embrace, or neutralize analytic contact. Operating from a psychoanalytic perspective, he explains how to cope professionally with moments of transference and maintain an objective interpretive stance within the ongoing matrix of projective identification, countertransference, and enactment. Each chapter discusses a wide spectrum of cases and clinical situations, describing in detail the processes that invite a playing out of the patient's phantasies and the work required to reestablish balance. Refreshingly candid, Waska recognizes the imperfections of analysis yet reaffirms its potential for greater psychological integration and stability for the patient. He acknowledges the limits and frequent roadblocks of working with difficult patients, such as those who suffer from psychic retreat, paranoid phantasies, and depressive anxieties, yet he indicates an effective path for resetting the clinical moment and redirecting the course for treatment.