Book Review by Noreen O’Connor (UK)

Book Review:
Beyond Doer and Done To: Recognition Theory, Intersubjectivity and the Third by Jessica Benjamin

(2020). Psychodynamic Practice, 26(3):292-296.

This review, initially presented at the book’s launch in London, highlights how Benjamin extends her innovative conceptualizations developed in The Bonds of Love in order to further illuminate how impasses and reparations occur between people, including individuals and socio/political groups. She addresses personal and political recurrence of immobilizing entrenchments, as well as reparations, in her relational engagement with conflictual differences both in her psychoanalytic practice with individuals and with groups. She vividly presents her engagement with Palestinian and Israeli mental health practitioners working to create a project for mutual acknowledgement under the auspices of the Gaza Mental Health Programme. The review emphasizes the vital relevance of Benjamin’s dynamic analyses for psychotherapists working with individuals and groups who are attentive to intersections of psychic/social/political relationships.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14753634.2020.1771756

GIF