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The author prefaces her book by explaining that ‘Ever since I can remember I've longed for a soulmate’. The chapters that follow are a personal account of her search for a soulmate—in terms of both an inner marriage and an actual committed partnership. The framework of the book is based on the obstacles encountered at three distinct stages: the search for a love relationship, the coming together of the lovers, and the wedding as affirmation and synthesis of our experience of the duality of life.
Along with her own autobiographical material, Leonard draws on her work with clients, fairy-tales and legends, films and novels, Wagner's Ring cycle, and the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke to illustrate the struggles that occur at each of these stages. Some of the difficulties Leonard explores entail the idealised, unattainable love object, the powerful seducer, possessiveness and jealousy, parental and cultural influences, and finally, the search for meaning and the existential encounter with the divine.
The rich case material contained in the book takes the form of pastiches of destructive relationships and illustrates the ways in which the various men and women concerned have been able to alter neurotic patterns in the course of their therapy. Unfortunately, there is scarcely any reference to work that has gone on in therapy and there is no discussion of the therapeutic relationship per se, the transference and countertransference. Consequently, the reader is left with no clear indication or grasp of how the process of ‘transforming the love relationship’ occurs