Dear IARPP colleagues,

This month’s edition of the IARPP Bookshelf features six newly published books, which focus variously on pushing relational theory forward, looking back to our historical progenitors, and surveying the analytic field in ways pictorial and historical.

Robin Brown questions psychoanalysis’ implicit reliance on secular norms by arguing that the continued evolution of relational thinking necessitates an embrace of the transpersonal and the spiritual. Robert Drozek highlights the foundational importance of ethical experience in the therapeutic relationship and the role that ethical commitments have played in inspiring the relational turn, arguing that psychoanalysis be seen as a vehicle for therapeutic and ethical change. Through a range of psychoanalytic and critical perspectives, Esther Rapoport examines bisexuality, noting that the concept is at once both dated and yet still tremendously important, in order to begin rectifying the lack of critical reckoning with the topic within the psychoanalytic community.

Mark Gerald’s well-known portraiture series featuring a cross-section of psychoanalysts situated in their offices now joins with his personal writings in a book that he describes as “part memoir, part history, part case study, and part self-analysis,” providing a complex portrait, visual and otherwise, of psychoanalysis today. Thomas Wånge offers what may be the first Swedish translations of relational authors in his introductory book on relational theory, charting the development and mapping the theories of the relational movement. The Swedish-language book includes a section on the influential roles played by IARPP and Psychoanalytic Dialogues.

And in “an imaginative piece of literature for which there is no name,” according to Thomas Ogden, Christina Griffin imagines Ferenczi in the context of the lively social circle he led. Her semi-speculative book, intermingling elements of historical correspondence and imagined reverie alongside her own transference, anxieties, and desires, grew out of her curiosity about, and her envy towards, this formative thinker and uncanny clinician.

In addition, you’ll read about IARPP members’ recently published chapters, journal articles, and presentations on a range of psychoanalytic and relational topics.

You are welcome to submit news of your recent or upcoming publications and presentations for the next IARPP Bookshelf issue, to be published in February 2020. The deadline for submission is Sunday, January 19, 2020.

Please include the following materials with your submission:

• Title of your recent or upcoming publication or presentation
• Brief description of its content (such as an abstract)
• Link to a publisher (if applicable) so that members might access or purchase a copy
• Book cover photo or artwork (if applicable)
• Digital photograph of yourself (jpeg format)
• Professional contact information as you would like it to appear publicly for our readers (email and mailing address)
• For book authors, please provide a brief bio of 50-75 words.
• For presenters, please include location and spell out any acronyms.

Submissions should be emailed to Matt.Aibel [@] gmail.com.

With thanks and best wishes,

Matt Aibel, LCSW
New York City