Clinical Stories and Their Translations proposes, and richly illustrates via numerous case examples, the utility of a depth psychology- informed ethnographic method of clinical thinking, teaching, supervision, and practice. Patient care, indeed all clinical treatment and counseling, involves the constant interplay between stories- those of the clinician, the patient, the patient's family, the clinical institution, and the wider culture. Stein and Apprey explore how the construction, interpretation, and translation of clinical stories inform all therapeutic work.

Clinical Stories examines the topography of meanings, fantasies, and affects (emotions) that organize and direct the course of clinical relationships, diagnosis, treatment, and outcome. Although placed solidly in the tradition of clinical hermeneutics, this study adds the crucial psychodynamic dimension that helps us to understand both the practitioner's resistance and access to the stories of his or her patients and families and hence to the healing process itself.