"Knafo and Feiner have done a masterful job of reinvigorating the concept of unconscious fantasy.  Their erudition is worn so lightly that we are carried along by the sheer pleasure of seeing how the false dichotomy between fantasy and reality dissolves into a mutually interpenetrating dialectic.  By combining modern classical and relational theory, they bridge a one-person emphasis on imagination and desire and a two-person focus on relationality and social context.  The resulting synthesis not only attests to the centrality of fantasy as a problem-solving mode of thought; it also reestablishes the critical importance of fantasy for contemporary psychoanalysis." - Virginia Goldner, Ph.D., Founding Editor, Studies in Gender and Sexuality "Through an interwoven mix of the clinical, the theoretical, and the psychology of the arts, Knafo and Feiner explore the crossroads where unconscious fantasy meets relational processes.  They have produced an informed, highly readable, and stimulating book - a book at the center of current theoretical debates that will reward readers at all levels.

" - Fred Pine, Ph.D., Private practice, New York City "In Unconscious Fantasies and the Relational World, Danielle Knafo and Kenneth Feiner critically examine the classic psychoanalytic constructs of the primal scene, family romance fantasies, and castration from a relational perspective of the intrapsychic, interpersonal, and artistic world of the individual.  They resurrect these developmental phenomena and take them to heights that soar away above the usual relational framing of internal psychoanalytic processes.  In the hands of Knafo and Feiner, classic psychoanalytic processes come alive.  The book is a lucid and creative realignment of the role of unconscious fantasies in our relational world.  It is a strong and needed addition to clinical practice and is highly recommended." - Annie Lee Jones, in PsycCRITIQUES 51.

40, 2006 "The clinical material provides excellent, detailed examples of the three types of fantasies and the manner in which unconscious fantasies can influence and even determine the unfolding of a life.Additionally, the application of psychoanalytic methods to analysis of film, memoir and performance art holds a certain interest for the reader." - Martha Dupecher in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis Vol.89, No. 3. "Unconscious Fantasies and the Relational World packs much rich material into its pages, raises many of the current issues and debates in psychoanalytic theory, provided thought provoking forays into psycho-biography and applied psychoanalysis and finally but not least requires us to look at the place of psychoanalysis in today's culture. Given the deluge of journals we attempt to plow through, to have so much in one slim volume is indeed a boon." - Helen B.

Levine, Ph.D., Psychologist-Psychoanalyst, 2008 .