This collection brings together twenty-six essays that originally appeared in a diverse array of journals. The thoughtful editing and introductions, provided by close friends and colleagues, provide a window into the life and work of Arlene Richards. The book has something to offer to clinical psychoanalysts and theoreticians, analytic scholars, clinical researchers, mental health professionals, academicians, moviegoers, and the lay public. She combines feminist perspectives with Freudian and ego psychological ideas; she brings feminists to psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts to feminism, while questioning the entrenched paradigms of each.

Like Freud, Richards extends her psychoanalytic lens to social and sociological issues, including social class, inclusion, exclusion, and loneliness and its relation to fear of one's own aggression. In each sphere, she conveys the profound role that our unconscious fantasies play. Phyllis Beren, in her