Enactment

Steven J. Ellman, Ph.D., is Past Co-Chair of the Independent Psychoanalytic Societies. He is Past President and Program Chair of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) in New York City, Professor in the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology at the City University of New York, and faculty member and supervisor in the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. His books include Freud's Technique Papers: A Contemporary Perspective, The Mind in Sleep and The Neurobiological and Developmental Basis for Psychotherapeutic Intervention. Dr. Ellman is in private practice in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in New York City.

Several major trends in psychoanalytic theory and technique converge on the concept of enactment in a way that allows us to see where we are comping from and where we are heading, where major agreement exists and where disagreements convey questions for continuing exploration. This book brings together the history of transference and countertransference in a compact, digestible way that sets the stage for the examination of recent points of convergence. The chapters in the first half develop the concept of enactment in classical and new theoretical papers. The second half demonstrates the clinical usefulness of the idea of enactment and locates it at the center of the therapeutic process. The final chapter draws together the many strands presented in the book to give an overview of agreements and of questions that remain. Enactment is an exciting, comprehensive book to be explored, used in training, and valued by psychotherapists of all persuasions and levels of experience.