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It's impossible for a critique of any serious book, let alone one as clinically and theoretically rich as Oedipus and Beyond, to be exhaustive or to do justice to all its contents and potential implications. In fact, any review is bound to be a selective construction, one that highlights certain aspects while underemphasizing or completely ignoring others that undoubtedly deserve attention. Greenberg's ideas are quite complex, moreover, and not easy to classify. In regard to Pine's (1990) four major types of theory, for example, is Greenberg a drive theorist? An ego-psychological theorist? A self-psychological theorist? Or an object-relational theorist? All of the above? None of the above? To grasp what Greenberg is trying to say you have to attend carefully, and you have to work at it. You can't assume you've got it because of one or another buzzword or phrase that you can assimilate neatly into some familiar theoretical schema.
The complexity of Greenberg's theorizing, however, should not prevent our trying to search out its possible weaknesses. Greenberg's approach to theory building in psychoanalysis begins with a conviction