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My immediate reaction to this stimulating collection of essays was to feel that the reader was being given generous access to the workings of the very active mind of a man at the mid-point of his life, both professional and personal. Having reasons to reflect back at the moment of changing course, he reproduces 16 different pieces of work between which there is a multiplicity of threads and associations which could even be described as ‘mind blowing’ for the unsuspecting enquirer. They range from earlier accounts of psychiatric and group-related topics through psychoanalysis, philosophy and political ideas, finding a common medium of expression as the book progresses in literature and especially poetry (see chapter 15, ‘Dark corners on poetry and melancholy’). This concludes, quoting Jeremy Reed: ‘It is what happens in the dark corners, in the hours when one is unrestrainably alone, that compromises the record of one's life.’ Wilson says, ‘Sylvia Plath has left us a graphic account of those dark places’ (p. 123).
The book is the second in a new series called Forensic Focus edited by Murray Cox. This series is appearing at a specific moment in time, recording the development of a new hybrid profession, forensic psychotherapy, mentioned by Murray Cox in the foreword and the specific subject of the other books in the series so far, at once exciting, complex and controversial. Sandwiched between a substantial textbook and a practical clinical guide, this contribution is on the one hand charming and informative and, on the other, idiosyncratic and anecdotal.