Thinking for Clinicians: Philosophical Resources for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Humanistic Psychotherapies

Whether they are supervisees entering analytic training or veteran analysts with twenty years of private practice, many capable psychoanalysts express frustration or doubt when trying to locate their work within the vast, sometimes intimidating realm of clinical theory. To that end, Thinking for Clinicians aims to provide analysts of all shapes and sizes with the tools and context for working critically within psychoanalytic theory and practice. It does this by familiarizing the reader not only with the philosophical backgrounds of the pioneers of psychoanalysis and other humanistic psychotherapies, but also through detailed chapters on some of the thinkers whose work is especially relevant for contemporary theoretical and clinical writing: Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Buber, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Historical background for their ideas is presented, and clinical vignettes within these chapters helps to contextualize their theory, further grounding it in real-world experience. With a hermeneutic sensibility firmly in mind, Thinking for Clinicians rewards as it challenges and will be a valuable reference for clinicians who seek a better understanding of the philosophical bases of contemporary psychoanalytic theory.