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My overriding impression from reading this book is that its author Kenneth Wright is someone who thinks for himself. I mean this not only in the sense that he eschews dogma, but also in the sense that he is engaged in the task of evolving a theoretical position on matters of great importance—especially, the origins of 'self' and the capacity to symbolize—that might bring (himself) personal satisfaction. As he writes in the Introduction: 'This is not really a scholarly book in the accepted sense of the word; it is more a journey of self-discovery' (p. xii). Although this statement is overly modest—Wright's use of the ideas of Langer, Sartre and G. H. Mead as well as psychoanalytic authors is deeply considered—it does capture something of the spirit of the work as one individual's struggles to master very difficult conceptual terrain. Thus readers should not expect a learned review of the full sweep of relevant psychoanalytic and non-analytic developmental literature. Instead we are invited to join the author in his determined, even passionate, intellectual venture.
It is not an easy task to trace the conceptual threads that constitute the fabric of Wright's argument. No wonder, perhaps: 'The terms subject, object, self, and consciousness are, indeed, the major dramatis personae of this book. They form a cluster of closely interdependent ideas and all refer to phenomena that arise out of the process of mother-infant separation. Each is closely linked to the development of our use of symbols …' (p. 78). Wright's aim is to explicate