ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with an overview of the distinction between small r and big R relational psychoanalysis. The author explores reasons why Relational psychoanalysis is often difficult to define, delineates key themes within the perspective, and introduces founding as well as more contemporary authors along with their contributions. The newest Relational ideas about clinical implications of the analyst’s subjectivity, deliberate self-disclosure, and “silent-disclosure” are reviewed. New thinking about enactment, psychotherapy integration and trauma treatment, race, gender, and sexuality—among other concepts—is considered. The chapter closes with a Relational model for how psychoanalysis might stay relevant and evolve rather than stagnate through applying Karl Popper’s notion of critical rationalism, the contention that scientific knowledge grows not by accumulating supporting evidence but by subjecting one’s beliefs to severe criticism.
