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This new collection of psychoanalytic contributions may appear daunting at first. What do the editors mean by the following three adjectives: “unknowable, unspeakable, and unsprung?” One's imagination could go wild pondering the editors' intent when they designed the book. In fact, the reader's imagination will range far and wide following the breadth of themes and perspectives tackled in this ambitious and mind-expanding compilation. Whether the reader chooses to take a short peek at one of the essays that piques her or his interest or devour the whole book in one afternoon, she or he will be rewarded with the read of this varied and unusual volume.
The title for the book emerged from a recent conference sponsored by the William Alanson White Institute that was designed to examine the dangers and the thrills lurking in an age where we live amidst fantasy, truth, and privacy. The topics constitute a veritable potpourri of “unspeakable” themes not often featured in psychoanalytic writing: political conflicts, hierarchies of suffering, ruffians and bullies, the unforbidden, body to body interactions, the analyst's neglect, seducing patients into treatment, and the scandalous patient, only to name a few. The book includes the several main sections that follow segments of the conference—the keynote addresses; The Traumatic Field: Psychoanalytic Growth and the Growth of Psychoanalysis; Utters from the Gutters: Political Loyalties and the Clash of Deeply Held Values in the Consulting Room; Stuck in the Middle with You: Encounters with the Analyst's Subjectivity; Body Tyranny: Hyperawareness and Hyperdeadness with Eating-Disordered Patients; On Being Naked: Self-Revelation, Secrecy, and Shifting Truths; Unsafe Surprises: Evil, Mortality, Diversity, and Other Strangers; Silence and Privacy: Negotiating Boundaries between Public and Private—In and Out of the Consulting Room.
In this review, I must limit the scope of what I can say, which is a challenge when describing a book t