Melting the Darkness is an outstanding contribution to the understanding of the psychoanalytic dyad and the theoretical principles that guide psychoanalytic practices. It is comprehensive without being ponderous, consistently relevant without being a prop, clear without elementary platitudes, and, most of all, well thought through without being dogmatic.

Warren Poland, a psychoanalyst who knows the importance of basic principles, clearly loves what he does and develops the technical principles that subserve his craft to the highest level. As someone who encourages a cross-fertilization of ideas, he manages to put forward his own syntheses in ways that allow those of us who teach to grasp his approach without producing a sinecure. The result is that he has succeeded in producing a work that will appeal