Synopsis: This book introduces the clinical concept of analytic contact. This is a term that describes the therapeutic method of investigation that makes up psychoanalytic treatment. The field has been in debate for decades regarding what constitutes psychoanalysis. This usually centers on theoretical ideals regarding analyzability, goals, or procedure and external criteria such as frequency or use of couch. Instead, the concept of analytic contact looks at what takes place with a patient in the clinical situation. Each chapter in this book follows a wide spectrum of cases and clinical situations where hard to reach patients are provided the best opportunity for health and healing through the establishment of analytic contact. This case material closely tracks each patient's phantasies, and transference mechanisms which work to either increase, oppose, embrace, or neutralize, analytic contact. In addition, the fundamental internal conflicts all patients struggle with between love, hate, and knowledge are represented by extensive case reports. 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 |
