The study of language and its impact on human development has been a dominant theme in twentieth-century intellectual thought. Language enables us to communicate and express ourselves and is central to the practice of psychoanalysis. It was Anna O., the famous initial patient of Breuer and Freud (1895), who first referred to the psychoanalytic method as a “talking cure.” Perhaps because language is so central to psychoanalysis, however, its function is sometimes overlooked and often taken for granted. John P. Muller's fascinating study demonstrates the extent to which language and human existence are intrinsically linked. His work starts from the premise that the human