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Previous reviewers Pulver (1995) and Spezzano (1995) acknowledged a personal relationship to Gill, as do I. This reflects Gill's generativity, which was attested to by the numerous colleagues at his memorial service, especially younger colleagues. Asking only that you be respectful of his views, he would generously devote much time and thought to responding, critiquing, and encouraging a colleague's work.
A review of his last book can hardly avoid at least a glance back at his career. His professional path, often at odds with received wisdom, was a thorny one, with numerous painful experiences. Many regarded him as an outsider, not worthy of serious consideration. His personal life, too, was beset with serious depressions. Withal, a great many analysts developed a profound admiration and a deep affection for him. His death represents a great loss to psychoanalysis, especially to many of his colleagues.
“I'll bet I will make more of a contribution to analysis than you have,” said Gill challengingly to one of his analysts. He was astonished when his analyst replied, “I wouldn't be a bit surprised” (Gill, 1994, p. 105). Was Gill a conservative who devoted his career to distilling the essence of psychoanalysis and to maintaining and supporting it, or was he a radical who labored at creating the Corrected Works of Freud? A review of his final work may throw some light on the question.
This volume stresses the controversies in psychoanalysis, a fitting culmination for a man who has lived most of his intellectual life in the glare of analytic controversies. In particular, the book “is largely confined to issues in the drive-relational antinomy” (p. xii). He saw clearly that in classical theory, the alleged instinctual drives must be abandoned in their original form for development to be normal. “Analysis” of oedipal wishes meant abandonment of oedipal wishes, just as “analysis” of penis envy meant abandonment of penis envy. On one score, Gill held firmly to the classical view