ABSTRACT
My discussion of Joe Lichtenberg’s contributions to psychoanalysis will center almost exclusively on his direct influence on me and on my own growing clinical and theoretical understanding. That this is a personal appreciation of Joe’s influence, however, in no way mitigates Joe’s national and international importance to the field. I have understood since the mid-1980s that Joe’s writings would influence and change forever how psychoanalysis was to be understood and practiced across the wide theoretical spectrum of psychoanalytic thought. Nevertheless, I choose to illustrate how particular seminal ideas of Joe’s transformed my own clinical approach.
