In Our Inner World, the still-arid fields of psychodynamics and
psychotherapy are watered refreshingly by the knowledge-laden, insightful
streams flowing from the considerable intellectual acumen of Scott R. Ahles, a
psychiatry professor (at the University of California, San Francisco).  The modestly stated goal, of Ahles, is to teach
some basic principles of psychodynamics and psychotherapy to trainees in:  psychology, psychiatry, counseling, and
social work.  And veritably, readers of
this enthralling book open a portal revealing absorbing scholarship of likely
interest to those covetous of traversing the oft-turbid world of psychodynamic
psychotherapy.

   In an engrossing, contemplative manner, the
book adroitly explains how a psychologically-revealing picture may potentially
be painted of a person’s inner world; and how knowledge and understanding of
such paintings may be of invaluable clinical assistance with respect to
artfully molding treatments tailored finely to fit a particular person’s inner
world, in a way conducive to promoting inner balance as well as healthy relationships
with others.  In the course of this
masterfully-crafted primer, Ahles skillfully navigates some of the
quite-demanding pathways, of psychodynamics and psychotherapy, in a way
designed well to facilitate better understanding of psychologically rooted maladies,
and how, in a clinical sense, to efficaciously treat them.  The book surely is a great intellectual boon
to those seriously interested in unraveling, and garnering some understanding
of, interjoined strands collectively comprising the tapestry of psychodynamic
psychotherapy.

  
The writing power of Ahles, coupled with Ahles’s well-developed research
skills, drench the pages of the text with a rather-intense abstruseness.  Stylistically, the book is unabashedly
academic in nature, and well constructed for didactic purposes.  Truly, Ahles’s painstaking study of some of
the roots of psychopathology is a trough from which luminous intellectual light
pours forth.  Problems of psychological
origin are illumined brightly in part by the expert use of instructive clinical
cases.  Indeed, the clinical case
presentations, grafted expertly into the textual body, are highly valuable
appendages, of the book’s structural anatomy. 
Additionally, artful "figures", crafted by Ahles, suffuse the
text, and embellish very materially the text’s didactic value.  A listing of references, adjoining the text,
may function usefully as a sort of bridge, assisting research-focused readers
intent on traveling down the path of further study of particular sub-niches, of
the expansive realm of psychodynamic psychotherapy.

  
Structurally, three "parts" are the mainstay pillars,
upholding the book’s structural foundation. 
The book, it should be understood, is not an all-comprehensive primer on
psychodynamics and psychotherapy. 
Rather than sketching exhaustively the full gamut of the multifarious
variants showing collectively the wide panorama of psychodynamic theories and
psychotherapeutic techniques, Ahles, instead, in workaday fashion, etches the
lineaments of selected concepts and theories germane to psychodynamic
psychotherapy.  In part one, tentacles
of rapt attention extend to:  an
explication of selected concepts tied to attachment theory; a pithy discussion
of several concepts interlinked to affect theory; a delineation of the concept
of primitive mechanisms of defense; scrutiny of the concept of arrest of the
separation-individuation process; engaging discussion of object-relations
theory; and terse, informed demarcation of some of the contours of:  id, ego, and superego.

  
The trandscendent aim of the handiwork of intellectually skilled artisan
Ahles is to utilize selected concepts allied to psychodynamic psychotherapy in
a way potentially helpful with respect to casting light on a person’s inner
representational world.  The crux
confronting Ahles is to craftily use interfused concepts so as to create, in a
sense, an at least somewhat, psychologically lucid picture of a person’s inner
representational world.  As envisaged by
Ahles, the illumining of a person’s inner representational world, facilitated
hopefully by the weaving together of disparate-yet-kindred concepts of manifold
psychological theories, may, in turn, contribute possibly in helpful fashion to
the effectual treatment of emotional dysfunction embedded in a particular
person’s inner world.  The foregoing is
the core message imparted by the first part of the book.

  
The development of a healthy sense of self, and the development of
healthy relationships, are given center-stage attention in the second part of
the book.  Working hard, Ahles pursues a
study of development, endeavoring to demystify linkages potentially binding
developmental interactions to psychologically rooted problems, in a context
relevant generally to illumining a person’s inner world.  In an intellectually energizing way, Ahles
adumbrates the development of sense of self and of interpersonal relationships,
including discussion of psychopathologic problems immersed in the potentially
tempestuous waters of the development of self, and examination of psychopathology
linked, in origin, to problematic development of relationship ability.

  
The last part of the book, in an instructive manner, seeks to elucidate
some of the profundities of psychotherapy by means of deft dissection and
examination of clinical cases, which comprise the corpus of several
chapters.  The sundry clinical
presentations are used adroitly to flesh out relevant psychodynamic concerns
and pertinent psychotherapeutic interventions. 
The interventions, of a psychotherapeutic nature, recounted in the
various case presentations are generally described engrossingly.  Overall, in the respective clinical
presentations, Ahles does a superb job of examining the relative clinical
efficacy of multifarious psychotherapeutic techniques, when applied to
difficult, real-life circumstances.

Exuding
emboldening intellectual doughtiness, Ahles lucidly, and absorbingly, plumbs
the challenging depths of psychodynamics and psychotherapy.  Ahles’s laborious, and quite-skilled, hewing
of the somewhat-amorphous corpus of psychodynamic psychotherapy should be
immensely enriching to: mental-health practitioners, engaged in clinical work;
researchers curious about the considerable challenges of variegated
psychodynamic theories and diffuse forms of psychotherapy; social workers; and,
not least, students aspiring to imbibe knowledge about psychodynamic
psychotherapy.

©
2005 Leo Uzych

Leo Uzych (based in Wallingford, PA) earned a law
degree, from Temple University; and a master of public health degree, from
Columbia University.  His area of
special professional interest is healthcare.

Categories: Psychotherapy