Herbert Rosenfeld at Work: The Italian Seminars

Between 1978 and 1985 Dr Herbert Rosenfeld was one of a number of British analysts invited by a group of Societa di Psicoanalisi Italiani members to conduct a series of seminars and supervisions for the purpose of deepening and refining that group’s clinical skills and theoretical understanding. This book is an illuminating record of that encounter, and a warm tribute to the significant influence of Rosenfeld’s contribution. It is divided into two parts - ‘Theoretical’ and ‘Clinical’, and based on a selection of verbatim transcripts recorded at the time. These transcripts, with their dialogical form, succeed in capturing much of the specificity of oral exchange, and thus convey a strong impression of Rosenfeld the man as much as clinician or theoretician. Rosenfeld remained to the end a continuously creative analyst and these ‘last thoughts’ provide the reader with ample evidence of his undimmed gifts. His subtle intuitions, meticulously close attention to both patient’s and analyst’s interpretations, and fine appreciation of the intricacies of the analytic encounter, are abundantly present.