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Rafael Paz has been among the most influential psychoanalysts in Latin America over the last three decades. He was a founding member of the
Argentinian Society for Psychoanalysis after the period of crisis in his native country in the early 1970s (see Arbiser 2003). Since publication of his classic book on psychodynamic psychopathology (Paz 1976), he has been a central figure in both the training of analysts and the advancement of psychoanalytic theory and practice in Argentina.
Most people in Latin America interested in psychoanalysis and clinical psychology will be familiar with Paz's text on psychopathology. Contested Issues, however, is a different animal entirely. It is not so much read as it is experienced, and reading it is a complex and difficult experience to say the least. The reason for this is twofold: on one hand there is the form, the style or prose of the author; on the other hand, there is the content. Let us start with the former.
The first thing the reader faces when engaging with Contested Issues is that the book is written entirely in paragraphs containing a single sentence. The only exceptions are quotes by other authors—in a couple of cases Freud, in another Bion. This generates a reading experience that is disjointed, jumpy, and—until the reader gets accustomed to it—at times disorienting. A few chapters into the experience it becomes clear that the content of the author's ideas has influenced the form of his writing. Paz is delving into areas of the mind that have to do with what is disjointed, split, unrepresented, or poorly mentalized, or what might be considered primitive or preoedipal. It seems only natural, then, that his writing style should reflect these topics. There may be an additional reason for the form of the author's writing, which has both scientific and literary qualities; as Paz proposes, “we must fully accept that it is poetic reason which is pertinent to psychoanalysis” (p. 35; all translations mine).
It is important to ment