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We create risk when we endanger something we value, whenever we test the relationship between thrills and virtues. So to understand, or make conscious, what constitutes a risk for us—our own personal repertoire of risks—is an important clue about what it is that we do value; and it also enjoins us to consider the pleasures of carelessness.
What Karen Maroda appears to value above all is emotional honesty. This is what makes her book such compelling reading. I found it to be a courageous book clinically, filled with detailed, engaging accounts of work with several patients, any one of whom would try any analyst's skills, patience, and emotional range. Maroda sets the tone for the book in her introduction, stating that how she works reflects who she is; she presents her work as arising from personal “truths” that may be shared by some readers and not by others. Though I did not share all of her truths, I nonetheless found most to be quite compelling because of her straightforwardness and honesty.
To understand this book, it is important to understand something about Maroda's development as a psychoanalyst. A native of Milwaukee, she commuted to Chicago for “bootlegged training” at a time before psychologists were admitted to most institutes on equal footing with psychiatrists. Rather than feeling isolated living in Milwaukee, she enjoys the freedom of being able to practice and work away from the constraints of an analytic community: “I make my own way and find that if I follow my