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This book, which originated as a series of talks, is divided into two parts and is supplemented by a glossary which contains some of the author's innovative concepts as well as more familiar ones of Bion, Lacan and Winnicott. The author helpfully advises that Part 1 be read in sequence because in it he defines his own concepts—the destiny drive, futures, idiom, topographic return and reversal on soon (eviscerative projective identification, however, is encountered in Part 2). These concepts are used to develop and elaborate on Winnicott's theory of the true self, a term which Bollas substitutes with idiom, referring to ‘the unique nucleus of each individual, a figuration of being that is like a kernel that can, under favourable circumstances, evolve and articulate’. I have quoted his definition partly to demonstrate the comparative case with which analytical psychologists will, I think, be able to relate through his book to his idiosyncratic language from within the framework of Jungian psychology, while appreciating significant differences between the two ways of thinking, Bollas draws a useful distinction between fate and destiny: he sees the latter as part of the life instinct, an urge ‘to articulate idiom through the selection and use of objects’. Just how the analyst fosters this articulation is the focus of the first part of the book, which is revealing of Bollas's style as an analyst and raised for me difficult questions about technique in the area of mirroring (what he calls ‘celebration’) where adaptation by a false-self poses a real risk.
The second half of the book is not an application of the theory in Part 1, although it does rely on the reader having grappled with Bollas's theoretical constructs. Rather it contains papers on a wide range of subjects with enticing titles, such as ‘The ghostlinc personality’, ‘Tripping’ and ‘Don't worry your father’. There is a chapter on the trauma of incest in which Bollas makes the interesting point that the abusive fa