On Learning from the Patient

Further Learning from the Patient: The Analytic Space and Process [Paperback]

Review

"An excellent book which conveys expressively what may happen in a

vivid psychoanalytic encounter. It will presumably establish a firm

place for itself in psychoanalytic training." – Ludwig Haesler,

Bulletin of the European Federation of Psychoanalysts

Product Description

On Learning from the Patient is concerned with the potential for

psychoanalytic thinking to become self-perpetuating. Patrick Casement

explores afresh the dynamics of the helping relationship – learning to

recognize how patients offer cues to the therapeutic experience that

they are unconsciously in search of. Using many telling clinical

examples, he illustrates how, through trial identification, he has

learned to monitor the implications of his own contributions to a

session from the viewpoint of the patient. He thus shows how, with the

aid of this internal supervision, many initial failures to respond

appropriately can be remedied and even used to the benefit of the

therapeutic work. By learning to distinguish better what helps the

therapeutic process from what hinders it, ways are discovered whereby

the circularity of pre-conception can more effectively be avoided by

those who aim to understand the unconscious of others. From this

lively examination of key clinical issues, the author comes to see

psychoanalytic therapy as a process of re-discovering theory – and

developing a technique that is more specifically related to the

individual patient.

The dynamics illustrated here, particularly the processes of

interactive communication and containment, occur in any helping

relationship and are applicable throughout the caring professions.

Patrick Casement's unusually frank presentation of his own work, aided

by his lucid and non-technical language, allows wide scope for

readers to form their own ideas about the approach to technique he

describes. This book, together with its sequel Further Learning from

the Patient, will be invaluable to trainee and practising analysts or

therapists, and those teaching in related professions.