eaving together state-of-the-art research, theory, and clinical insights, this book provides a new understanding of the unconscious and its centrality in human functioning. The authors review heuristics, implicit memory, implicit learning, attribution theory, implicit motivation, automaticity, affective versus cognitive salience, embodied cognition, and clinical theories of unconscious functioning. They integrate this work with cognitive neuroscience views of the mind to create an empirically supported model of the unconscious. Arguing that widely used psychotherapies–including both psychodynamic and cognitive approaches–have not kept pace with current science, the book identifies promising directions for clinical practice.
Winner–American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize (Theory)
The authors are clearly masters of their craft. The time, energy, and focus is clearly evident with every sentence. Absolutely exquisite.
Wow! What an incredible example of scholarship. The depth of review and logical sequencing of ideas makes this book exemplary. While reading the section on computational neuroscience, the systematic presentation of ideas reminded me of a quotation from William James, “Phenomena are best understood when placed within their series, studied in their germ and in their over-ripe decay.” James continues by discussing the importance of drawing parallels once an idea has been mapped out in such a thorough way, “[well-established ideas should be] compared with their exaggerated and degenerated kindred” (James 1902, 373). I felt like this book achieves this high standard set out by James.
Is a true scholar one who truly searches to the core to understand and then teach that idea.
This book is a one of a kind work.
The diversity of these normative unconscious processes has been revealed in a staggeringly complex literature. The authors’ conceptual mastery of this literature is remarkable, resulting in an impressively organized explication that puts the psychodynamic understanding in proper perspective. In addition, they link cognitive science to computational neuroscience in a way that is illuminating and fascinating.
The authors’ psychodynamic orientation is invaluable in this work, because they articulate the implications of their reframing of unconscious processes for psychotherapy in a way that can prevent therapists from overestimating unconscious motivational processes (e.g., defenses) and underestimating normative processes (e.g., misconstruing normative processes as motivated “resistance”). True to clinical life, they fully appreciate the limits of psychotherapy without minimizing its benefits.
In sum, this work is brilliant, fascinating, accessible, and extremely useful for clinicians.