Confidentiality

...this book deserves to reach all therapists, not just those committed to a single school of thought...this volume is recommended as urgent reading for all psychotherapists who are troubled by the erosion of supposedly confidential communications in their professional work. - Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training This excellent collection of thoughtful essays examines in depth the role of confidentiality in psychoanalysis. It addresses a set of issues that range from the clinical relationship and the privacy of the self to the intersection of psychoanalytic practice with its social and cultural surround. More than an ethical or legal treatise, this book shows confidentiality to be, in the editors' words, 'a complex form of professional practice that links privacy and freedom of thought with the heart and essential methodology of the psychoanalytic encounter.' - Howard B. Levine, M.D., Chair, Joint Committee on Confidentiality, American Psychoanalytic Association Only rarely does a conference metamorphose into an outstanding book. Confidentiality has made that journey. It shows how analysts experience, and mediate among, conflicting obligations to patients, supervisors, and students, to research and to writing. This book is not only about confidentiality but also about conundrums that inhere in the psychoanalytic endeavor. I feared it would be a dry read, but it turned out to be juicy, pleasurable, and informative. - Ethel Spector Person, M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research The subject of confidentiality is a topic that is always current and relevant. The strength of the book lies in the presentation of the broad perspective and the associated ethical perspectives that are often overlooked but are nonetheless relevant. In addition, the reader is reminded of the clinical confidentiality dilemmas that often accompany psychotherapy irrespective of the theoretical framework utilized by the therapist. - Martha Barham, R.N., Ph.D., in American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis