Review of The Analyst's Reveries: Explorations in Bion's Enigmatic Concept; Dear Candidate: Analysts From Around the World Offer Personal Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training, Education, and the Profession; and A Fresh Look at Psychoanalytic Technique: Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis

• Published in: Psychoanalytic psychology 2023-10, Vol.40 (4), p.367-369
• Main Author: Heller, Gabriel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Freudian Psychoanalytic School; Human; Psychoanalysis; Psychoanalysts; Psychoanalytic Interpretation; Psychoanalytic Training; Reflectiveness; Thinking; Unconscious (Personality Factor)
• ISSN: 0736-9735; 1939-1331
• DOI: 10.1037/pap0000471

Reviews the books, The Analyst's Reveries: Explorations in Bion's Enigmatic Concept by Busch Fred (see record 2019-13679-000); Dear Candidate: Analysts from Around the World Offer Personal Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training, Education, and the Profession by Busch Fred (see record 2020-95859-000); and A Fresh Look at Psychoanalytic Technique: Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis by Fred Busch (see record 2021-80653-000). In three recent books, the American psychoanalyst Fred Busch puts forth a clear, rigorous, open-minded vision of contemporary psychoanalysis and makes a powerful case for its enduring relevance in 21st century life. Firmly grounded in the American Freudian tradition, Busch’s work emphasizes the gradual working through of unconscious conflict and the bolstering of the mind’s self-reflective capacities. Busch is unwavering in certain core principles, such as the importance of symbolic thinking, the mutative role of interpretation, and the need to stay “in the neighborhood” of what a patient is willing and able to hear at any given moment. Yet, he understands on a very basic level that no theoretical orientation or technical apparatus is ever complete and that the stunning mystery of the human mind is inexhaustible. His writing offers the reader a compelling image of an exceptionally skilled, emotionally attuned, intellectually rigorous clinician hard at work, one who remains humble and open in relation to the unknown and deeply committed in his search for psychic truth. With regard to the meaning of contemporary psychoanalytic practice, what he gives us is as much an ethos as a set of powerful and useable ideas. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)