Projective and Introjective Identification and the Use of the Therapist's Self

Reviews / Votes

Jill Scharff provides ample and detailed descriptions of her use of countertransference experience in the understanding of therapeutic interaction and formulation of interpretations and other therapeutic interventions. It is only in the rare instance that there are countertransference data of the sort provided by Scharff that it is possible to portray and analyze the moment-to-moment experience of being with a patient. I consider this book to be a major contribution to the analytic understanding of the therapeutic process . . . -- Thomas H. Ogden, MD, The Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California; author of <i>Coming to Life in the Consulting Room</i> and <i>Reclaiming Unlived Life</i> Most welcome of all for the reader is Dr. Scharff's ability to write with both liveliness and clarity. Her admirably scholarly review of relevant literature is distilled, for the reader, in readily understandable terms, as she enables us to follow the development of her authentically original views concerning projective and introjective identification_views based in part on the contributions of earlier writers, but in larger part on her own clinical experiences with patients in diverse treatment settings. Dr. Jill Scharff is an immensely creative clinician and writer who will, I am sure, illuminate other readers' lives and work as she has illuminated, for me, my own life and work. -- Harold Searles By demonstrating how she uses the concepts of projective and introjective identification in her own work, Dr. Scharff has enlarged our vision and has enriched our understanding of the therapeutic process. A scholarly text, a teaching guide, a casebook for practitioners, this is a unique work that should be read by students and experienced therapists alike. -- Theodore Jacobs, MD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine