Readers of collections of articles by many authors on a single subject face daunting challenges and difficult questions. How can they adapt to the shifting definitions and emphases? Does the book deal with a single phenomenon or a host of clinical conditions? Are the different authors applying their own biases to a uniform diagnostic category when they describe the dynamics of a particular condition, or are they describing the dynamics of only a small subgroup of that condition? The editors, eager to provide some unity for the reader, will have difficulty coordinating and sorting out the divergent points of view and showing how they interrelate.

These issues are particularly relevant to a volume on masochism. As Maleson has demonstrated,1 authors have defined masochism