ABSTRACT
Psychoanalytic case histories—which, from Sigmund Freud on, have been the primary evidence for both theory and technique—are almost always written by the analyst. “Psychoanalysis” has too many connections to the old Freudian version while “psychotherapy” may be too broad. Therapeutic practice should be flexible, open-minded, and nondogmatic, but, all too often, the field has been dominated by powerful leaders and their orthodox doctrines. George Atwood presents strong arguments and case material for the damaging effects of antipsychotic medications in the treatment of schizophrenia and trauma survivors. Of the various contemporary psychoanalytic schools, only the Control-Mastery approach was directly built from research findings. While contemporary psychoanalysis stresses the relational, interpersonal, and intersubjective nature of the enterprise, studies of therapy are still almost all confined to reports in which the therapist describes the patient and says little or nothing about himself or herself.
