You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Psychoanalysis has, since its inception, been a field of clinical and theoretical endeavor noteworthy for controversy and disagreement among its followers, who, while officially “following Freud” by verbal and written pledge, have had no compunction about revising his ideas and theories to the point where they are unrecognizable. Freud, had he been anticipating much that has followed his outline of psychoanalysis, might have written a book entitled Psychoanalysis and Its Discontents, in which he could have documented the way in which various “loyal followers” were, in reality, deeply critical, often completely disregarding his description of what is basic to psychoanalysis as he had envisioned it. These revisionist theorists both individually and as schools of psychoanalytic thinking always insist that they are following the path that Freud, had he lived longer, would certainly have taken. While pointing to Freud's limited conceptualization of mental life or directly challenging his perspective, they uniformly cloak themselves in his contributions as incorporated in what they see as a more penetrating approach to psychoanalysis.
The reader of this review might ask with some understandable bewilderment how such an introduction is relevant for a book entitled China on the Mind. Where does the history of conflict about psychoanalytic theory enter into a book about China or the Chinese philosophy of the mind? I hope that the important connections between China and psychoanalysis in the view of this volume's author, Christopher Bollas, will emerge during the course of the review as will an understanding of why my introduction regarding dissent and turmoil in the psychoanalytic world is relevant. While there can be little doubt about the restless nature of many psychoanalysts, stemming from the desire to find new fields of endeavor to approach from the perspective of their favored psychoanalytic theories, few can compete with Christopher Bollas's attempt in this book to li