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Routledge shows great wisdom in reissuing Forces of Destiny, by Christopher Bollas, already a classic. In 1989, when it was first issued, it was his second book publication. He offers a new Preface, dated 2018, to accompany his original writings, his original insight and depth of understanding.
As I read, I was shocked by the fact that I had not read this book before, and, grateful that, 30 years after it first was published, I had an opportunity to be introduced to the book, and to the power of the ideas Bollas shares. Bollas uses his own original language, his own terminology, which, though not commonly in use over these years, have been translated into common knowledge. Certainly, the force of these ideas has had an impact on psychoanalytic thought over these many years.
“Destiny” is a powerful word. Linked with the word “Forces,” we are invited to contemplate what may be, or, perhaps, even what must be, the is-ness that is evolving.
In his Preface, Bollas cites Winnicott's “facilitating environment” as “crucial in determining whether the infant's true self can realize its potential” (p. xii). Destiny thus is linked to the reality of an infant's earliest ongoing experiencing. Bollas further says that “we are all gifted with ‘futures’ - potentials of our true self - which we may or may not realize in the course of time” (p. xii).
Thus, we are invited to a journey of self and an unfolding destiny, a future intertwined with the idiom of self. Idiom? Even before his Preface, Bollas introduces the concept of idiom, stating his Thesis: “Human idiom is that peculiarity of person(ality) that finds its own being through the particular selection and use of the object. In this restricted sense, to be and to appropriate are one” (unpaginated).
In these introductory statements, Bollas (1987) reminds us of the theme of his first book, The Shadow of the Object. Truly, the shadow of the object falls wherever the human being is. And the shadow of object relations theory is a paradox,