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If I am not mistaken, true books are not as frequent as they used to be. My impression is that collections of papers, be they by the same or different authors, are a more frequent occurrence. This may reflect the difficulty encountered in synthesizing the ever-growing wealth of knowledge and opinion in any given field, psychoanalysis being no exception. Authors and readers alike, then, seem to concur in looking at matters in a fragmented manner. Clips of every kind are the growing form of experience. There are exceptions, however. There are authors who put the required time and effort in trying to capture in one single work the many facets of some important topic. Thus an ‘old school’ book is produced, giving the reader who is ready to put in his own effort, the rewarding experience of substantial learning and reflection. Meissner's Time, Self and Psychoanalysis is one such work. I would not say that it is satisfying on every account, but certainly the author has used his vast culture, his long clinical experience, and his expert expository skills to dig deeply into a huge literature full of fascinating if difficult topics and give rich accounts of his findings and reflections. Time and self are major areas of interest for psychoanalysts, each in its own way endowed with ambiguities, controversies and uncertainties. But then, this is what makes them even more interesting. One feels indebted to an author who has gone a long way into exploring these difficult subjects, dealing with disciplines as different as physics, neurophysiology, and philosophy - to mention only a few - and efficiently showing their relevance for psychoanalysis.
But real books deserve genuine readers. Indeed, the reader who only browses superficially through such a complex web of facts and concepts as Time, Self and Psychoanalysis may end up either feeling dizzy or erroneously thinking that he already knew it all. What novelty, indeed, could one expect from studying such eternally puzzling matters