ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the Interpersonal tradition has been the forerunner to our most contemporary ideas, all based on the joint pillars of a purely Interpersonal theory of human development and analyst's inherent subjective co-participation in all aspect of analytic work still under-recognized. Prominent leading psychoanalytic thinkers once associated with the classical Freudian hegemony of the American Psychoanalytic Association, shortly prior to entering the twenty-first century, write of an 'emerging common ground' with respect to theories of therapeutic action. Analysts associated with this Interpersonal perspective originally viewed themselves in opposition to the hegemonic Freudians in the United States and did little to try to become integrated into the broader American or international psychoanalysis of the middle part of the twentieth century. There seemed to be a certain pleasure in being considered as rebellious and radical outsiders, reading the literature of the conservative majority.
