The importance of self-analysis has been part of analytic lore since Freud's self-analysis defined our field. Yet until recently, little had been written about what self-analytic work actually amounts to. James W. Barron has rectified that situation with a highly illuminating and entertaining collection of fourteen sophisticated papers from a spectrum of authorities.

The anthology is larger than the sum of its parts; the reader's outside perspective makes it possible to notice much that the individual authors do not see. The reader's experience demonstrates a theme of the book: the difficulty in seeing oneself from outside is a central problem for self-analysis articulated by several of the authors. Warren Poland deftly describes the danger of fooling oneself into accepting self-satisfying self-reflection as analysis. He shows how one