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One of Britain's foremost psychiatrists, and author of nine books (including Human Destructiveness), Anthony Storr here collects 14 previously published essays loosely organized around questions of psychoanalysis and creativity. He begins by focusing on four men, Churchill, Kafka, Newton, and C.P. Snow, deftly weaving psychoanalytic insight into their personalities, life events, and achievements with an honest respect for what psychoanalysis cannot make meaningful—the impenetrable depths of the human psyche and the existential facts of biochemically driven depressions. Thus, Storr avoids the common pitfall of bad psychobiographies that allow theory “to outrun discretion” in its headlong pursuit of formalized truth.
The result is an admirable blend of subject and author, for we are as much impressed by the intricate characters we read about as by the seasoned wisdom of Storr himself. Here is a clinician with a breadth of experience that enriches his psychoanalytic insights. And when he lets his mind wander over larger questions, we follow him, delighted and curious: What can the play Othello tell us about the nature of sexual jealousy? How do we develop psychologically into adults? Is psychoanalysis a science or an “interpretive discipline,” not a panacea for specific mental illnesses or even specific symptoms but an artful, philosophical, and deeply interpersonal understanding and rewriting of the living narrative we call “our personal lives”? If the human spirit seems most fulfilled and expressed by creativity, why do some people become violent and destructive? And what are the responsibilities of psychiatrists to an “open society” that embraces all sorts of different perspectives and criteria for sane behavior? How far should we extend the custodial role of