Jon Mills is a prolific author with a penchant for philosophical clarity—a trait we might expect from a practising psychoanalyst with a PhD in philosophy. In Conundrums, Mills outlines and criticizes recent developments in psychoanalytic theory, developments broadly known as ‘relational’, and submits them to analytical and philosophical critique. Mills' criticisms underline both important developments and potentially problematic theses and practices associated with the relational theories.

‘Relational theorists’ comprise a large category of authors and schools of psychoanalysis, not all of whom call themselves ‘relational’, a point Mills clarifies in his preface (pp. xi-xii). Among the well-known relational theorists are Robert