In the twelve years since the first edition of Talking With Patients was published, contributions from relational psychoanalysis and from neuroscience have been integrated into much of the work done by self psychologists. The relational focus on the impact of the treatment relationship on the psychoanalytic process, while implicit in self psychology, is made explicit in this new edition.

Additionally, the concept of implicit memory, a contribution from neuroscience, has opened the door to new ways of understanding and dealing with patients who were severely abused as children. In the second edition of Talking with Patients, the author discuss how we are guided by non-verbal cues as much as by verbal ones, and continues to expand on the idea that therapists learn how to do therapy as much from their patients as from supervisors or theories.