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Jon Mills is a psychoanalyst and philosopher, president of the Canadian Psychological Association's Section on Psychoanalysis, and editor of Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies, a book series with Rodopi Press. He has written and edited a number of important psychoanalytic books recently, and many of the central ideas contained in these works can be
traced to The Unconscious Abyss. The aim of Mills's book is interdisciplinary: to help psychoanalysts and philosophers alike appreciate Hegel's theory of mind and its ramifications for clinical work. This is an ambitious, scholarly project at which Mills succeeds admirably.
To some readers, the tide of this book may not seem inviting. After all, revisionist schools of psychoanalysis, particularly the interpersonal, inter-subjective, and relational, are not generally given to discussing the unconscious at any length. At the same time, some clinicians remain hesitant to jump into the waters of philosophical discourse. What makes Mills's book stand out is that it helps the psychoanalyst and interested reader understand current debates in psychoanalytic theory and practice in ways that are both clinically relevant and historically illustrative.
Mills's approach is two-fold. First, to explain how Hegel develops a theory of the unconscious that is central to his entire philosophy. Second, to show the relevance of Hegel's philosophy to psychoanalysis, both historically and contemporaneously. Since the latter is of more direct relevance to clinicians, I focus primarily on Hegel's anticipation of psychoanalysis, and on Mill's own theory of “process psychology.” To begin, however, I want to provide some biographical and philosophical background since Hegel today is no longer a commonly known figure.
The philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) is without doubt one of the most influential of the modern era. In contrast to continental Europe, the stature of philosophy as a discipline has suffered decline in contemporar