To chart the theoretical and clinical evolution of some of the leading psychoanalytic pioneers of the 20th century is no small undertaking. In her book, Judith Hughes has provided an introduction for those analysts and historians wishing to understand how Freud, Klein and Bion wrestled with understanding the problems of neurotic and psychotic disorders. She organizes her material more or less chronologically into chapters according to diagnostic categories like hysteria, obsessional neurosis, depression, paranoia and narcissism. The informing metaphor is ‘obstacles encountered, allies made.’ The new psychopathologies encountered in the 20th century were seen to be obstacles until they were transformed into new theories and treatments. Put schematically, Freud innovated a