Nini Herman is a survivorpar excellence. Even when she discards objects, she manages to salvage something from the experience. Somewhere one knows she has had something good (her nanny?), if only she can refind it. In her short book, beautifully illustrated by her artist husband Josef Herman, she manages to convey with amazing economy a sense of her own complex personal history and feelings, as well as to portray the essence of the analytic experience at its worst and best.

Born in Germany to a wealthy, assimilated Jewish family, Dr Herman suffers a background of emotional deprivation and neglect. She is overwhelmed by loss upon loss. She describes a history of mental