Observing the Other

Peter Buckley's engaging essays open a door into the worlds of psychiatry, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis, yesterday and today. A door not into the clinic, but to the end of the day, with a fire in the study, a glass of wine close at hand, and opportunity to share the thoughts of an intelligent, self-critical, and very likeable friend. The essays range from Freud's early cases (and the understandable mistakes he made with brilliant corrections), through to the current development of psychoanalysis with multiple models of theory and treatment. Detours, to the burning of witches, transcendental experience in psychosis, the structure of the mind originally conceived in Greek philosophy, the post-Enlightenment rise of Romanticism-all fill out a view of wide interest to the general reader, as well as invaluable for psychiatrists and trainees in psychoanalysis and psychiatry. Above all they stress the humane face that psychiatry and psychoanalysis must always develop, but is always at risk of losing. -J.J. Wright, MD, DSc, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Auckland