Faces in a Cloud: Intersubjectivity in Personality Theory

In my judgment, the authors have made a strong case for the proposition that the structure of a theorist's metapsychology will duplicate the structure of his subjective world, laid down mainly by the critical formative events of his life. It is a praiseworthy accomplishment. They have done much to clear the air of metapsychological clouds. They have shown new possibilities for psychoanalysis as a strictly clinical theory. All of these steps bring psychoanalytic thought closer to its observational base, closer also to the humanitarian impulse that underlies the helping professions.
Faces in a Cloud shows more clearly than anything else I have read the futility of the factionalism that pervades the field of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
This is an important work, both for the psychology of personality and for psychoanalytic theory. The authors establish a broad, 'decentered' perspective . . . whose purpose is to integrate various theories of personality by acknowledging their inevitable subjectivity, and then using that subjectivity to demarcate the limits of each theory. They provide fascinating psychobiographical case studies of Freud, Jung, Reich, and Rank, in which they demonstrate the relation between the internal world of each author and the major preoccupations and motivational principles of each theory. They convincingly argue that the broad metapsychological abstractions in each theory are defensive or reparative reifications of the internal psychodynamics of each theorist. This book raises important issues and questions for readers at all levels.