Authenticity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter

Authenticity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter brings together Irma Brenman Pick''s original contributions to psychoanalytic technique. Working within the Kleinian tradition, she produces vivid clinical narratives that succeed in shedding a humane light on the struggles that patients - and, indeed, all of us - face in recognising, in an authentic way, our need for, and the contribution of, others in our lives.

Brenman Pick is interested in the infantile antecedents of conflict in her patients, and the book demonstrates the attention needed to sense how these may be present in the patient''s clinical material. This involves an ability to understand the complex and sophisticated unconscious phantasies that are alive in the patient''s mind. She combines this with a creative clinical imagination that allows her to address these expertly in the here-and-now of the analytic encounter. A particular feature of this is the way Brenman Pick uses the analyst''s countertransferenc