Synopsis:
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. The author invites the reader to discover the clinical value and technical utility of analytic contact. Notes about the author:
Robert Waska MFT, PhD is a graduate of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies and has a private psychoanalytic practice for individuals and couples in San Francisco and Marin County. Dr. Waska has taught and presented in the Bay Area as well as internationally. He is the author of ten published textbooks on psychoanalytic theory and technique, is a contributing author for both The Handbook of Contemporary Psychotherapy and The Handbook of Hate, and has published over eighty articles in professional journals. Dr. Waska’s work focuses on various contemporary Kleinian topics including projective identification, loss, borderline and psychotic states, the practical realities of psychoanalytic practice in the modern world, and the establishment of analytic contact with difficult, hard to reach patients. He emphasizes the moment-to-moment understanding of transference and phantasy as the vehicle for gradual integration and mastery of unconscious conflict between self and other. --- from the publisher | 
