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This remarkable book is an original and creatively organized treasure trove of information for those seeking a scholarly and approachable synthesis of the important subjects of gender, developmental psychology, and relational theory and their significance for contemporary psychoanalysis. The author's depth of background and ability to synthesize the many complexities and controversies surrounding these subjects into a clear, unified psychoanalytic voice contributes substantially to the book's unique quality. Harris's primary target audience is clinical psychoanalysts, and lively and impressive clinical vignettes appear throughout the book. But her clinical sensibility and even-handed approach is a tangible presence, whatever her subject, so that practicing psychoanalysts will find all of the book experience-near.
Harris clarifies early on that hers is an interdisciplinary work, immersed in an important larger context. She wants her psychoanalytic readers to absorb a crucially important climate of opinion—new ways of thinking about dynamic processes that include the human mind, but also play out in all of human life and the natural world. Throughout her work, she particularly stresses the power and constraints of binary thinking and categorical reduction when it comes to human meaning and theory making. One useful and important theoretical approach that provides interesting perspectives on binaries is nonlinear dynamic systems theory, also known as chaos or complexity theory, and the author's rich use of this theory is also original. Complexity theory is of particular use in Harris's overall approach to gender issues, as well as to other important aspects of contemporary psychoanalysis, such as relational and identity issues, and growth and development. Complexity theory creates opportunities for integration among these areas.