I promised my Top Ten but instead I offer you my Top Seven. These are the theorists/therapists whose thinking and writing have most influenced me and my work:
Jung -- I have been reading and learning about Jung and Jungian thought for more than 25 years and I am still engaged and challenged by it. There is a substantial subset of post-Jungians who have influenced me as well. I'll write about them in a later post.
Freud -- How anyone in this field, regardless of the theoretical approach they favor, can not recognize the influence of Freud on all of our work defies me. Freud, Jung, and Adler shaped how we understand the process of therapy down to details like our offices.
Robert Langs -- Langs is a psychoanalyst who has written extensively about the therapeutic frame. In fact, his work is the place to start for anyone wanting to understand the frame. He is far more rigid than I am but reading his work and receiving supervision from someone who has adapted his approach to Jungian analysis gave me a good foundation for shaping my own practice. From them I had what I needed to set what I feel are the best parameters for my work, being aware of how and why I deviate from the strictest frame.
Harry Guntrip: Guntrip was one of the analysts of the British Object relations school. His book, Schizoid Phenomena, Object-Relations, and the Self -- and isn't that a mouthful? -- is one of those that I have read and re-read. If all I gleaned from him was his recognition that most of the time we would rather be bad than weak, he would stand as big influence. But there is more for me in his work, especially vis a vis schizoid patients. Not light reading though.
Donald Winnicott: Winnicott gave us the concept of the "good enough mother" and a lot more. Wonderful to read. I connected to the British Developmental Jungians via Winnicott and Guntrip. So Michael Fordham belongs here too, I think.
Julian Rotter: Rotter was the head of the clinical psych program at UConn when I was there. We all dutifully learned about social learning theory and Rotter's work, and those of us who were politically astute endorsed it above all else. But I have long since deviated from this path so why would I list Rotter here? Well, many of his ideas are useful and important regardless of what therapeutic approach one takes. And Rotter was part of the vanguard that insisted that clinical psychologists be taught by psychologists rather than made into junior psychiatrists -- so he shaped much of our professional identity.
Gerald Patterson : Patterson is known more within the circle of those who treat aggressive children than among clinicians as a whole. I started my career working with children and Patterson was just starting to publish his thoughts about using behavioral approaches and contingency contracting with kids. His books became the basis for much of what we did in the therapeutic nursery I helped found and directed in those days. And his thinking shaped mine as a parent and in the parenting education I have offered.
So there you have it -- my Top Seven.