New Tools for Psychoanalysis Clinical Investigation and Psychoanalytic Training in the Working Parties

'New Tools for Psychoanalysis is a remarkable book that describes the history, development and the different forms of one of the most creative achievements of psychoanalysis supported and stimulated by IPA: the working parties. The editors and contributors are the analysts who developed and currently chair the working parties; each chapter is a true masterclass richly illustrated with clinical material. I strongly recommend the reading of this comprehensive and scholarly-written new book, which shows the vitality of contemporary psychoanalysis. As someone who took part in the collective effort to develop this fascinating new psychoanalytic tool, I am sure that the readers will enjoy the symbiosis of scientific method and aesthetic experience that the book provides.'

Cláudio Laks Eizirik, former president of the IPA

'The Working Parties were and are the most courageous, innovative and creative experiment of mutual knowledge and theoretical-clinical fertilisation in the psychoanalytic community. By periodically confronting live clinical material provided by analysts from all over the world, groups of geographically and culturally heterogenous colleagues have been able to evolve individually and at the same time have contributed to substantial collective progress in our scientific field. This book, written by yesterday's and today's protagonists of this wonderful adventure, is absolutely recommendable as a fundamental text for understanding contemporary psychoanalysis.'

Stefano Bolognini, former president of the IPA, founder of the Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis

'Twenty years ago, the European Psychoanalytic Federation initiated a series of working parties to study psychoanalysis psychoanalytically. They were to focus on psychoanalytic data such as case presentations and employ psychoanalytic methods such as free associative listening. The project has since been taken over by the International Psychoanalytic Association, has expanded around the world, and has become a dominant theme in the intellectual life of the profession. This volume, the creation of 31 leading psychoanalysts, presents a valuable summary of ten of these working parties and provides the foundation for the next stage of inquiry in psychoanalysis.'

Robert Michels, MD, Walsh McDermott University professor of Medicine and Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medicine; president, Board of Directors, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly; former joint editor-in-chief, The International Journal of Psychoanalysis