Howard A. Bacal Livres

Focusing on specificity theory, this book explores the unique dynamics of therapist-patient relationships and their impact on the effectiveness of psychotherapy. It challenges conventional practices by integrating insights from neurobiology and infant research, prompting a reevaluation of key concepts like theory, response, and relationship in therapeutic settings. The text emphasizes the importance of understanding these elements to enhance both practice and training in psychotherapy.

The authors present early object relations theorists who broke away from classical psychoanalysis (I. Suttie and H. S. Sullivan). They provide lucid descriptions of the works of M. Klein, O. Kernberg, H. Racker und M. Mahler, whose object relations theory integrated the classical approach and anticipated self psychology. Furthermore, they analyze the gap between object relations theories and self psychology which was bridged by M. Balint, W. R. D. Fairbairn, H. Guntrip, D. W. Winnicott as well as J. Bowlby. The final chapter is an introduction to Kohut's work and describes the development of self psychology into a selfobject theory.