Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers several issues which arise in our work, reframed primarily from a relational psychoanalytic perspective but also with a measure of focus on temporal issues. It provides a historical overview of the use of the “couch ritual” from its inception with Freud to the present. The book presents a critique of the relational school of thought at this point of its evolution, when it has established itself as a major school of psychoanalytic theory and practice. There have been a growing number of critiques of relational psychoanalytic perspectives to date. Relational psychoanalysts hale from many diverse camps, from object relational, self-psychological, interpersonal, intersubjective, infant research, field theory, neurobiological approaches, neo-Kleinian schools, and others. The situation remains somewhat the same today.