The Use of the Self: Countertransference and Communication in the Analytic Situation

"When the first edition of The Use of the Self appeared, Ted Jacobs was viewed as courageous for recognizing that what happened within the analyst was of equal importance to what happened within the patient. Since that time, few analysts would contest the notion that there are two 'patients' in the room and that what is going on inside the analyst is highly relevant to what is going on inside the patient. Indeed, today this view of analytic work is widely accepted wherever analysts practice. This second edition is therefore perfectly timed in its release. I recommend it to both beginning candidates and to well-established analysts of all theoretical orientations. It is a must-read." --Glen O. Gabbard, MD
Author of Love and Hate in the Analytic Setting

"Theodore Jacobs broke novel ground in 1991, thinking about analytic engagement in this classic and beloved book that is presented in this new edition, insuring interest for new generations of psychoanalysts. Jacobs's gi was (and is) the transla)on of challenging theory into its subtle depths of clinical application. He integrates ego psychology, self psychology and object relations. Nowadays he belongs in Chodorow's 2004/2019 category of 'The American Independent Tradition, ' using an intersubjective ego psychology after Loewald and Erikson that is fresh and contemporary. Masterfully he shows fruitful details of how countertransference actually works verbally and nonverbally, moving along clinical process. Demonstrating how limited was the old view of the analyst's reactive feelings and attitudes as hindrance, Jacobs shows the impact of its use for self-attunement, and ultimately sensitivity to the patient's life and mind. He builds here on his 1986 inventive interactive concept of 'enactment'-- a term nowadays so useful in our thinking about unmentalized traumatic aspects of analytic interaction that we have forgotten how controversial it once would have been. . . . enthusiastically recommended for all who practice and care about psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically-oriented therapies."
--ROSEMARY H. BALSAM, FRCPsych (Lond), MRCP (Edin), Author of Women's Bodies in Psychoanalysis

THEODORE J. JACOBS, MD is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry (Emeritus at The Albert Einstein College of Medicine and training and supervising analyst at The New York Psychoanalytic Institute and The Institute for Psychoanalytic Education where he is also a child supervising analyst.