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Addressed to philosophers, psychoanalysts, and, above all, to people with interests in both disciplines, this is both a wonderful and a frustrating book. I can recommend it without hesitation to psychoanalysts for its ability to engage us in the concerns of 20th-century European philosophers who are unsatisfied with the materialist conceptions of mind popular in American and British circles (Frie notes Ryle, Dennett, and Rorty as examples). Frie, who must be a superb teacher, makes accessible both complex and unfamiliar ideas, as well as much work that has not been translated or is really untranslatable. Here is an example from his presentation of Sartre's work (many others could have been chosen from sections on Lacan, Habermas, and Binswanger):
Sartre astutely observes how a love, motivated by selfish desire, can result in a cycle of domination and dependence. He refers to the appropriation of the other, without letting oneself be appropriated in turn, as sadism. Conversely, the denial of one's subjectivity, and the refusal to be anything but an object for the other, constitutes masochism. On Sartre's reading, the interpersonal love relationship is characterized by the oscillation of these two basic attitudes. (pp. 62-63).
The style of this book makes it possible to grapple with the issues of residual Cartesianism (e.g., isolated-mind thinking), the relation between subjectivity and intersubjectivity, the possibility of real human connection, and many other questions. The implication is that our views on these questions, whether implicit or explicit, inform our clinical work and that it is therefore important for psychoanalysts to struggle with these matters. The greatest virtue of this book, from my point of view, is the way it draws us into conversation with important and difficult thinkers about fundamental questions that psychoanalytic discourse often leaves