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This book is the first in a series entitled “The Role of Affect in Motivation, Development, and Adaptation.” It is devoted to pleasure, which, while more a quality of a number of affects than an affect itself, is certainly important enough to be included in the series. The rather peculiar title of this volume is intended to signify that the discussions of pleasure herein are not limited by Freud's concepts in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” but instead reflect contemporary affect theory, as well as contemporary developmental, clinical, theoretical, and philosophical thought.
A well-thought-out series of books on contemporary psychoanalytic affect theory, or, better, on contemporary interdisciplinary affect theory, would indeed be welcome. Unfortunately, if this volume is typical of those to come, such a series is not at hand. Its problems, which I will delineate in more detail as I describe each chapter, can be conveyed most succinctly by simply saying that it arose from a symposium. With rare exceptions, such an origin spells the kiss of death for comprehensiveness, logical organization, evenness of quality, and the presentation of a real overview of a topic. Despite the best efforts of the editors, this book is no such exception.