Slochower offers a fresh, thought-provoking, and clinically useful integration of Winnicott's notion of the analytic holding environment with contemporary relational and feminist/psychoanalytic contributions. Seeking to broaden the concept of holding beyond work with severely regressed patients, she addresses holding in a variety of clinical contexts and focuses especially on holding processes in relation to issues of dependence, self-involvement, and hate. Throughout, Slochower considers the impact of holding on patient and analyst alike. She emphasizes the analyst's and patient's co-construction, during moments of holding, of an essential illusion of analytic attunement that protects the patient from potentially disruptive aspects of the analyst's subjective presence. Case vignettes helpfully illuminate the intersubjective aspects of the holding process, including the clinical picture when a holding frame fails.
--- from the publisher Contents A Relational Holding Model
Holding as Metaphor
Holding and Regression to Dependence: The Winnicottian Model
Holding and Self-Involvement
Holding and Ruthlessness and Hate
On the Edge: Working Around the Holding Process
When Holding Fails
The Holding Function in Mourning
Holding in Context
The Evolution of Psychoanalytic Collaboration |
