This book offers groundbreaking insights into relational theory, exploring the patient’s and the analyst’s longings to know, be known and not known in psychoanalytic relationships, and the embodied nature of the healing process.

Recognition of the patient’s unknowable uniqueness, which is not fully accessible by means of empathy, is shown to promote more ethical therapeutic practices. Although few psychoanalytic books have highlighted the work of the philosopher, Marcel Foucault, Brothers and Sletvold find much that is highly relevant in his work. They also demonstrate the powerful influence of culture, history, politics and world events on the therapeutic encounter.

With an informed and compassionate perspective, this book is essential reading for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists regardless of their theoretical orientation.