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This is a delightful and totally unique book. Louis Breger wishes to convey what contemporary analytic psychotherapy is really all about. The field has changed. The belief in the therapist's anonymity and neutrality has been replaced by an emphasis on being ‘relational,’ ‘interpersonal,’ or ‘intersubjective.’ Many excellent scholarly books have been written about these newer versions of psychoanalysis, but they are all highly theoretical, and clinical surveys are largely written from the therapist's point of view. They do not convey the heart and soul of the therapeutic experience in all its complexity, a complexity which is due to the uniqueness of each individual. Each therapist/patient pair has its unique color. Symptoms may sound alike, but seen in the unique contexts of the patients' lives, their meaning will vary. Can one convey this complexity? Breger's book, guided by his creative vision, is a resounding affirmative. The new approach highlights the patients' reactions to therapy as well as the nature of the therapist. Breger, recently retired, looked back upon his career as a successful psychotherapist and was curious about what his former patients had to say about their therapy with him. Did therapy have long-term effects? How did their lives evolve? He conducted a survey of 30 of his former patients, asking them to describe what they remembered as being most helpful/therapeutic/curative in their work together, and whether the progress they made endured, regressed, or expanded. Their comments, quoted uncensored, became the core of the book. Breger simultaneously wrote up his own account of what he remembered about the therapy of an individual patient and sent the material back to her or him asking for comments. Thus, an extensive e-mail dialogue evolved. Another unique feature of this retrospective is Breger's inclusion of detailed autobiographical data, believing that a successful therapy depends more on the personality of the therapist than his theoretica