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The odyssey in this book's title refers to the reader's journey through the book, from chapter to chapter, each of which discusses a psychoanalytic topic. Author Eugene J. Mahon holds consistently to the metaphor of Odysseus's sea journey home from Troy, with “ports of call” and exciting “adventures” at each stop. And in fact the book relates many adventures in psychoanalysis at the ports of call portrayed in the various chapters.
The reader of this book, and of this review, will become aware that Mahon's theoretical orientation in psychoanalysis is “classical”—a poor term, but the one most conventionally used to designate the stream of development deriving directly from Freud's structural theory, embodying the centrality of conflict and adhering to the technique and methodology of free association. The reader will search this book in vain for references to the many transiently popular proponents of radical change in psychoanalysis since the late 1960s. Though it is not Mahon's intention, his book demonstrates that classical psychoanalysis is, and continues to be, a powerful orientation that promotes ongoing creative innovation in the field.