Relational Theory and the Practice of Psychotherapy »

Paul L. Wachtel, PhD, is CUNY Distinguished Professor in the doctoral program in clinical psychology at City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He completed his undergraduate studies at Columbia University, received his doctorate in clinical psychology at Yale University, and is a graduate of the postdoctoral program in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy at New York University, where he is also a faculty member. Dr. Wachtel has lectured and given workshops throughout the world on psychotherapy, personality theory, and the applications of psychological theory and research to the major social issues of our time. He has been a leading voice for integrative thinking in the human sciences and was a cofounder of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration. 

This important and innovative book explores a new direction in psychoanalytic thought that can expand and deepen clinical practice. Relational psychoanalysis diverges in key ways from the assumptions and practices that have traditionally characterized psychoanalysis. At the same time, it preserves, and even extends, the profound understanding of human experience and psychological conflict that has always been the strength of the psychoanalytic approach. Through probing theoretical analysis and illuminating examples, the book offers new and powerful ways to revitalize clinical practice.

Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry

"This is a remarkable, rich, and ambitious book....This is a wonderful book. It affirms much that we actually do, it teaches much wisdom, and sparks with therapeutic enthusiasm."--Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry

1. Context and Relationship in Psychotherapy: An Introduction

2. How Do We Understand Another Person? One-Person and Two-Person Perspectives

3. The Dynamics of Personality: One-Person and Two-Person Views

4. From Two-Person to Contextual: Beyond Infancy and the Consulting Room

5. Drives, Relationships, and the Foundations of the Relational Point of View

6. The Limits of the Archaeological Vision: Relational Theory and the Cyclical–Contextual Model

7. Self-States, Dissociation, and the Schemas of Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity

8. Exploration, Support, Self-Acceptance, and the “School of Suspicion”

9. Insight, Direct Experience, and the Implications of a New Understanding of Anxiety

10. Enactments, New Relational Experience, and Implicit Relational Knowing

11. Confusions about Self-Disclosure: Real Issues, Pseudo-Issues, and the Inevitability of Trade-Offs

12. The “Inner” World, the “Outer” World, and the Lived-In World: Mobilizing for Change in the Patient’s Daily Life