This book comprises collected papers of Enid Balint over a period of 37 years. The earliest written in 1954 is the clinical presentation by which she was elected to full membership of the British Psycho-analytical Society; and the most recent in 1991 (written for this book) is about her technique especially in relation to working with states of mind ‘before I was I’. The editors, who like Enid Balint, are members of the ‘Independent’ school provide not only a useful, informative overall introduction (Michael Parsons), and a respectful, friendly, probing recent interview (Juliet Mitchell), but also preliminary notes for each paper which inter alia set it in context. (I discovered that the notes sometimes cluttered my direct experience of thinking about