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Perhaps the most appropriate way to begin this review is with Rafael Paz's own words, succinctly, rather evocatively describing the “artisanal” (p. 11) function of psychoanalysis:
What do we aim for? Emotional opening, acceptance of the contradicting versions of ourselves, of the self, and of primary links, and a lessening of useless thinking and anguish. All in the service of subjective thickening, requiring crossing through resistances and accepting the rules of the transferential game, where, as any renewed metapsychology would recognize, passion and sense converge [p. 16; translation mine throughout].
The aptly titled Psychoanalyzing, by one of Argentina's leading contemporary analytic thinkers, is a work of profound psychoanalytic reflection. In it, Paz accomplishes a mix between delicate theoretical elaboration and musings or “systematic digressions” on analysis and contemporary life. By including this latter dimension, Paz joins the tradition of Latin American thinkers like Silvia Bleichmar and Pichon Riviere, who problematize the role of culture in psychoanalysis and view analysis as a method for the interrogation and opening up of new forms of subjectivation. He sees subjectivation as both limited and facilitated by societal and institutional values, ever expanding but also prone to forms of regression that lead to a deep feeling of discontent in society. Given where psychoanalysis and its subjects are now, what emerges from these pages is fresh, cutting-edge thinking.
Although each chapter is devoted to a separate topic, the author's central preoccupation is the nature of the psychoanalytic act, always linked tightly to his clinical work. The book has the feel of an analyst's diary, containing insights developed within the span of a few short pages, reminiscent of Bion's Cogitations (1992). One can almost imagine the author writing between sessions (in fact, in the first section there is a taste of that), as he reflects on what has just happened and as these