Roy Schafer's latest book is a collection of papers previously published elsewhere, most in the 1990s. Continuity is provided by the author's search to understand the dialectic noted in the title. He endeavors to free himself—and us—from undue confinement by tradition, while yet remaining respectful and cognizant of its riches, and to differentiate changes that further the development of basic psychoanalytic principles from changes that evidence their abandonment.

In essays on Freud, Hartmann, and Eissler, Schafer sounds a note of profound respect for their achievements, while at the same time taking issue with them quite cheerfully where he believes we are now in a position to do better. Refreshingly, he does his best to deal with them in terms of the analytic and societal climate within which each was working. This is a fairness not always accorded our analytic forebears