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To start my review I shall repeat some remarks which I made at the meeting of The British Psychoanalytic Society on 26 February 1974, when Masud Khan presented his paper: 'Secret as Potential Space', shortly to be published. I said that Khan's erudition is of a very special kind. He moves with ease and elegance in many locations of cultural experience, in the writings of students of the human condition, be they psychoanalysts or philosophers or artists, and in his own psychoanalytic room, in the direct contact with his patients. In the latter, the psychoanalytic situation, he encounters hardship which he tolerates with patience, compassion for his patients' distress and an ever ready scientific quest. The demonstration of his method and procedure is no less rewarding than is their result.
The papers collected in the present volume span a period of 12 years. As we reflect on the author's journeying, we see that he follows a two-way traffic. Being a discerning traveller he brings home treasures the value of which he enhances by his own contributions. He preserves scientific tradition by reviewing the existing literature pertinent to his topic before presenting his own views. When linking the past with the present, the distant with the near, the well-established with the new, he expands the dimensions of familiar concepts with his own original discoveries. Where my own work is concerned, I can see how fully Khan understands my thinking and how much he enriches my concepts by bringing new ranges into focus through his sharp and painstaking analysis. I refer in particular to my views concerning the countertransference as a cognitive tool and about the mother and analyst acting as the infant's and patient's supplementary ego when their 'auxiliary' role centres specifically upon provisions to the nascent ego functions.
The author has chosen an arresting and challenging title for the present collection of essays. It is apt. He puts his finger right on the pulse o