Mapping Psychic Reality Triangulation, Communication, and Insight

This book is about how we can deepen our understanding of subjectivity through the use of the concept of triangulation. Fundamentally, this book seeks to address the question of how we can be objective about subjectivity. If psychology, as a scientific discipline, is concerned with the study of human experience, which is essentially subjective; then we are faced with the problem of how apply the scientific method, as it is commonly understood. If experience is essentially unique to the experiencer, then there seems to be a basic incompatibility with the scientific method. As currently practised, this method searches for psychic phenomena, which can be validly measured e.g. intelligence; showing a range of individual differences. But this does not enable us to examine individual experience. An individual's experience seems to become impenetrable because generalisation across different individuals' experience entails the loss of individuality in the generalisation.

This is an important book, which tackles, both with theoretical and clinical papers, the complex question about how we can be objective about our subjective experience. The concepts of triangulationA" and the thirdA" provide ways of trying to organize answers to this question. Indeed, the book itself provides a thirdA" area; a space where one can seriously consider and observe the nature of the psychoanalytic experience from a point of view that takes account of both the subjective experience of patient and analyst while also trying to think objectively about their experience, in ways that are consistent with psychoanalytic thinking. To do this, various authors have drawn on psychology, philosophy, history, natural science, and mathematics, as well as turning specific attention to the psychoanalytic relationship. It is an impressive collection, which I would very much recommend.' - Dr Roger Kennedy, Training Analyst and Past President British Psychoanalytical Society

James Rose