ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the vicissitudes of the concept of progressive fittedness in the adult analytic situation. It introduces Sander's principles of 'specificity of recognition', 'specificity of connection', 'moments of meeting', and 'progressive fittedness', and the philosophy that underlies them. The book discusses that the full implementation of his principles in adult psychotherapy can only occur through the intermediate area of psychoanalytic theories. It focuses on a particular kind of clinical problem-the needs of patients who present with serious problems in their self-care. The book considers the trend in contemporary relational thinking emphasizing the centrality of interaction in the register of 'implicit relational knowing'. It explores the self-psychologists' commitment to the principle of empathic inquiry and attunement represents a particular analytic intention, or, in Bion's language, a desire. The book outlines the current synthesis and offers a brief, ordinary clinical example as illustration.
