(photon), one can, from a pragmatic perspective, enjoy the practical bene- fits of accepting both clinical approaches, Frommian and Sullivanian, as offering clinical truth and benefits. The concept of coparticipant inquiry, with its dialectical focus on both the personally unique and the interpersonal, has affirmed and informed my clinical experience. The principles of coparticipant analysis (outlined in chapter 2) represent the ideals and concepts informing my own practice. I find the following clinical emphases or features of coparticipant inquiry particularly helpful and instructive: 1. the egalitarian emphasis on the analytic equality of patient and ana- lyst—the nonauthoritarian acceptance of the patient as a true partner 2. the acceptance of the patient as both a communal and a uniquely individual being. Both the reality of personal responsibility and the need for interpersonal responsivity are taken into clinical account. The patient is neither seen reductively solely in terms of his or her social surround nor studied without reference to the interpersonal context of his or her experi- ence. 3. the bidirectionality of coparticipant inquiry, which makes possible a freer and wider range of acceptable analytic behavior 4. the call for greater freedom in analytic technique allows for and, in fact, demands that as analyst I be in touch with my immediate experience 5. the notion of the therapeutic process as a personal encounter, which encourages greater authenticity in analytic relatedness 6. the emphasis on there being no one “right” answer to clinical ques- tions is a relief to us since we are so often burdened by notions of the proper or “correct” understanding of clinical events. These are some of the therapeutic benefits to be found in coparticipant inquiry. This, then, takes us directly to the study of this clinical paradigm and its evolution in psychoanalytic praxis. xii Preface