Herbert Rosenfeld makes a powerful case both for the intelligibility of psychotic symptoms and the potential benefits of their treatment by psychoanalytic means.

Psychotic States brings together a number of the author's papers written between 1946 and 1964 dealing with the psychopathology and treatment of various psychotic and borderline conditions from a psychoanalytic viewpoint. Taking the theories and techniques developed by Melanie Klein in her work with infants and young children, the author investigated their application to a range of psychotic syndromes, including chronic and acute schizophrenia, severe hypochondriasis, drug addiction, severe depression and manic depression, both to determine their possible therapeutic efficacy and to see what light they might shed on the etiology of the psychosis.

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.

Betty Joseph's work has become an outstanding influence in the development and theory of psychoanalytic technique in the Kleinian tradition. This collection of her most important papers examines the development of her thought and shows why a crucial part of her theory and practice is concerned with the detailed, sensitive scrutiny of the therapeutic process itself. Fundamental and controversial topics explored and discussed include projective identification, transference and countertransference, unconscious phantasy, and Kleinian views on envy and the death instinct.

Essentially clinical in its approach, Psychic Retreats discusses the problem of patients who are 'stuck' and with whom it is difficult to make meaningful contact. John Steiner, an experienced psychoanalyst, uses new developments in Kleinian theory to explain how this happens. He examines the way object relationships and defences can be organized into complex structures which lead to a personality and an analysis becoming rigid and stuck, with little opportunity for development or change. These systems of defences are pathological organisations of the personality: John Steiner describes them as 'psychic retreats', into which the patient can withdraw to avoid contact both with the analyst and with reality. To provide a background to these original and controversial concepts, the author builds on more established ideas such as Klein's distinction between the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, and briefly reviews previous work on pathological organizations of the personality. He illustrates his discussion with detailed clinical material, with examples of the way psychic retreats operate to provide a respite from both paranoid-schizoid and depressive anxieties. He looks at the way such organizations function as a defence against unbearable guilt and describes the mechanism by which fragmentation of the personality can be reversed so the lost parts of the self can be regained and reintegrated in to the personality. Psychic Retreats is written with the practising psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in mind. The emphasis is therefore clinical throughout the book, which concludes with a chapter on the technical problems which arise in the treatment of such severely ill patients.