Interpretive Voices: Responding to Patients

The contributions in this book exemplify ways in which different analysts think about and treat the issue of interpretation, illustrating the distinctiveness with which an analyst expresses his or her own personality, creativity, and understanding within the medium of psychoanalysis. Entering the realm of the philosophical concept of the particularised universal in which the general concept finds its expression not in abstraction but only in its particular manifestation, each analyst construes the theories and body of knowledge of psychoanalysis in his or her own way.

The editors believe that the analytic process can embrace not only different theoretical views, but also differences in how we listen to and communicate with our patients, the expressions of which create an analytic climate with its own particular diction, vocabulary, and distinctive voice. The individual voice is implicit in the literature, capable of being demonstrated, and an important factor in the analytic process.

This is a book about the practice of psychoanalysis and the interaction between two personalities, illustrating the interpretive voices of its ten authors, their analytic methods, their thinking and responses to their patients, and how they convey their understanding whilst remaining authentic. The psychoanalytic practitioner and the specialist reader will find the contributions enhance their understanding of the interpretive process in psychoanalysis as it is practised in the UK today.