Interpersonal Psychoanalysis: A Contemporary Introduction
Part of Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series - more in this series

Book Details
- Publisher : Routledge
- Published : July 2025
- Cover : Paperback
- Pages : 162
- Category :
Forthcoming - Category 2 :
Psychoanalysis - Catalogue No : 98193
- ISBN 13 : 9781032797168
- ISBN 10 : 1032797169
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In this book, Anna Maria Loiacono introduces the reader to the origins of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis, its most important concepts, and their clinical value.
Throughout the chapters, Loiacono navigates historically through the principles of Harry Stack Sullivan, clearly and succinctly outlining the ideas of those thinkers who followed, to the latest reflections of Contemporary Interpersonal Psychoanalysis. Illustrated with case vignettes, this book addresses concepts such as dissociation, differences between splitting and dissociation, countertransference, enactments, field theory, hermeneutics, the unconscious, the unformulated experience, self-disclosure, relational and interpersonal psychoanalysis, change and the use of the therapist’s subjectivity, as they are currently considered in the interpersonal approach, seen from the perspective of Loiacono’s personal point of view and professional experience.
Part of the Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series, this book is a vital read for all analysts in practice and training, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists.
Reviews and Endorsements
Loiacono invites us on a journey of discovery. On the way, we learn how, where, and why the Interpersonal Psychoanalytic tradition was born and explore its central concepts through the lens of a consummate scholar and exquisitely sensitive clinician. Most importantly, we learn what Interpersonal Psychoanalysis can mean to us. All psychologically minded teachers, students, and practicing clinicians will benefit from seeing the Interpersonal movement through Loiacono’s eyes.
Sandra Buechler, Ph.D., Training Analyst, William Alanson White Institute
In this short volume Anna Maria Loiacono describes the origins of interpersonal psychoanalysis in Sullivan’s work and its evolution in the contributions of authors who built upon his ideas. The book is valuable because it offers both an account of the development of interpersonal thinking and a vision of the way it is seen and used in a culture very different from the one in which it originated.
Jay Greenberg, Ph.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, William Alanson White Institute, Former Editor, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly
Loiacono’s book is an excellent, brief introduction to the interpersonal perspective in psychoanalysis, which has been part of the psychoanalytic world since the 1930s and continues to develop today. This compact overview will be welcomed by senior practitioners, and deserves wide adoption in courses offered by centers of training in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
Donnel B. Stern, Ph.D., William Alanson White Institute, New York, New York
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Series Editor's Preface
Introduction
Section I
1. The Roots of Interpersonal Thought
2. Brief Biography of Harry Stack Sullivan: The Birth of the Group at the Forefront of the Story of Interpersonalism
3. The Fundamental Concepts of Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry
4. From Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry to Interpersonal Psychoanalysis through Clara Mabel Thompson
Section II
5. Dissociation: Similarities and Differences Between the Concept of Splitting and that of Dissociation
6. The Interpersonal Field: Interpersonal Field and Intersubjective Field: Two Different Concepts?
7. Countertransference
Section III
8. Clinical Theory
9. The Unformulated Experience
10. The Psychoanalytic Thought of Edgar Levenson
11. Brief References to Other Interpersonal Protagonists and Interpreters of Interpersonalism
12. My Personal Interpersonalism
References
About the Author(s)
Anna Maria Loiacono is a Relational and Interpersonal Psychoanalyst who lives and works in Florence, Italy. She is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Institute of Analytic Psychotherapy of Florence and teaches in Italian and foreign Schools of Psychotherapy. She is the Secretary General of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies (IFPS)
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