This work is a very interesting and important contribution to psychoanalytic thinking, not only because of how well it elucidates sadomasochistic phenomena, but also because the Novicks's developmentally complex conceptualization provides a model for understanding a broad range of psychodynamic phenomena. The Novicks—clear and well-organized thinkers and writers—begin with a brief and helpful introduction summarizing the book's major ideas. Throughout their work they find “four consistent and interlocking themes” (p. xi): a particular metapsychological approach (by which they mean giving multidimensional descriptions of psychological phenomena, rather than the term's commoner meaning, the creation of a grand, overarching theory); a developmental point of view; the belief that child and adolescent analysis