Transforming Aggression: Psychotherapy with the Difficult-to-Treat Patient

Dr. Frank M. Lachmann, eminent clinician, teacher, and researcher, offers help to clinicians working with difficult-to-treat patients. Designed to avoid escalating spirals of aggression and prevent therapeutic stalemates, the process of change begins with an understanding of the nature, causes, and function of the patient's aggression.

About the Author :
Frank M. Lachmann, Ph.D., is a member of the Founding Faculty of the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity; Clinical Assistant Professor, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; and Training and Supervising Analyst, Postgraduate Center for Mental Health. A member of the advisory boards of psychoanalytic institutions in Boston, Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Toronto, he is author or co-author of more than 75 professional publications.

Review :
This is a comprehensive and spirited overview of the clinical application of Kohut's self psychology to the therapeutic issues surrounding assertion, reactive aggression, and what Dr. Lachmann dubs eruptive aggression. Countering the common charge that self psychology does not (or does not know how to) deal with the varying expressions of aggression in treatment and in life. Lachmann carefully explicates the distinctions between the self psychological and other (relational, ego psychological, and Kleinian) approaches to these issues. This book is valuable reading for all of us concerned with the manifestations of aggression and hostility in this world, and what we, as concerned professionals, can do to ameliorate their hurtful effects. Although Lachmann's energetic and astute discussions of countertransference and projective identification would probably be best appreciated by the more theoretically sophisticated analytic practitioner, I would say that every other section of this book makes accessible, fascinating, and enjoyable reading for any educated, intelligent, and curious individual, with or without knowledge of psychoanalysis. Throughout the book Lachmann's ideas are illustrated with ample case material, literary references, and research findings, such that the reader has the opportunity to visit and revisit complex concepts in various guises and contexts... This book deals with aggression in all its forms in the most thorough and clinically relevant manner, from the mildest sense of annoyance to cold-blooded serial killings. With its numerous examples, the book captivates, entertains, but primarily informs the reader about the latest views of the origin and clinical manifestations of aggression. The detailed clinical reports that sensitively capture the nuances of the interaction in the analytic dyad take up the discussion of the most central and currently hotly debated issues regarding the relationship between assertion and destructive aggression. Psychotherapists of every theoretical persuasion will find Transforming Aggression most rewarding and instructive. Although Lachmann's energetic and astute discussions of countertransference and projective identification would probably be best appreciated by the more theoretically sophisticated analytic practitioner, I would say that every other section of this book makes accessible, fascinating, and enjoyable reading for any educated, intelligent, and curious individual, with or without knowledge of psychoanalysis. Throughout the book Lachmann's ideas are illustrated with ample case material, literary references, and research findings, such that the reader has the opportunity to visit and revisit complex concepts in various guises and contexts.