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This book contains many interesting and provocative ideas, but I found it a difficult book to read (in contrast to his previous book The Shadow of the Object), particularly the first part. It seemed to me that Bollas' literary and intellectual style at times rendered his meaning obscure and elusive, provoking irritation in the reader. There is also quite a bit of repetition which arises partly out of the fact that each chapter was originally a talk given whilst the author was working in the USA. I thought it fair to reveal my bias at the beginning of the review so that the reader can bear it in mind.
Bollas states in his introduction that this book is an effort to think about that aspect of the patient's use of the analytic situation, akin to play, which is an elaboration of latent elements of the personality. In the first part of the book he aims to develop a theory of Winnicott's concept of the true self. Bollas calls the true self (the inherited potential which depends on maternal care of its evolution) the idiom of the personality. He postulates an urge to use objects through which to articulate the true self which he terms the destiny drive. I remain uncertain how much these new terms really contribute to our thinking or whether they promote woolly quasi-philosophical thinking about the development of the self.
Bollas aligns himself with other Independent Group Analysts (Balint, Winnicott, Milner) in focusing on the way in which the analytic encounter may or may not facilitate the development of authentic self experience. He contrasts the deconstructive elements of the analyst's function (interpreting the latent content) with what he calls the constructive elements, in which the patient is facilitated to use the analyst in order to elaborate the true self. He gives several clinical vignettes to illustrate this. His interest in the use the patient is making of the analyst's personality extends beyond the transferencecountertransference paradigm. He demonstrates ho