A Different Kind of Listening

A California psychoanalyst closely examines her 25-year experience as an analysand with three different analysts, each of whom she credits with distinct, if limited, strengths. As a young mother, Chernin (The Hungry Self) began her first analysis with a distinguished male analyst in San Francisco. After discovering new strength of self, she was shaken by a renewed sense of uncertainty and moved abruptly to Israel. Back on the West Coast years later and studying for a degree in clinical psychology, she entered her second analysis, this time with a woman. After claiming her bisexuality, Chernin ended that effort with a sudden move to New England. The third analyst, once again in California, was another man, with whom Chernin discussed her own analytic cases and theories. A lengthy disagreement with him over the role of analyst (Chernin's stance is that the analyst is a listener who facilitates the analysand's narrating of his/her own life story) led to the end of that collaboration. Of interest mainly to analysts and analysands, Chernin's chronicle is eloquent, specific and, perhaps appropriately, self-absorbed. (Jan.)