Marcus and Rosenberg composed, designed, and conducted this enterprise. The designation “editor” fails to convey the thoughtful, creative authorship underlying this collection of essays by various contributors. I will refer to them as editors as well as editor-authors. The title implies, but also understates the more ambitious thrust of the endeavor, as I hope to show.

The book explores the “veritable Babel of Theories,” which confronts an intrepid scholar who ventures to ask the question, “What is psychoanalysis?” The many answers vary, depending on definitions, assumptions, time, place, and the metaphysical commitment of the person asked. The varied theories proclaim very different versions of understanding the human condition. One theory is built on man being pleasure seeking, another sees man's essence in object seeking, a third posits man as meaning seeking. Their claims are irreconcilable. Roy Schafer sees psychoanalysis as emerging as an array of master narratives that dictate specific and incommensurable storylines for the interpretive