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May G-d bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
May you stay forever young
In Flirting with Death: Psychoanalysts Consider Mortality (Masur, 2018), Corinne Masur has put together a collection of essays by psychoanalysts exploring the difficult and often-eschewed subject of death. A supervising adult and child analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, Masur has written and taught extensively on mourning, the denial of death, and early childhood bereavement. While the title of this volume may suggest at first something seductive, in “flirting” the reader discovers how mortality, whether the analyst's or the patient's own, bears a reality all too often avoided. As we shall see, Masur also considers the elusive and symbolic notions of mortality, including illness, termination, retirement, disruptions in treatment, and even abstinence and neutrality, all presaging and casting light on the meaning of death in their own terms. Here, “flirting” marks the circumvention with which we analysts often wish to think about the ominous reality of mortality in our consulting room. What also comes through in this important book is the deeper sense of loneliness and isolation that mortality evokes for both the analyst and the patient. Perhaps it is no accident that “flirting with death” is not a solo act; rather, it emerges as a collection of voices, assembled in their attempt to make sense of death in psychoanalysis. Flirting with Death is a necessary work, courageous and moving, in which psychoanalysts reminisce, share, and reflect upon their own individual experience with mortality as well as the need at times to deny the complex and profound emotions the subject awakens in us. In the nine essays that collaborate as a poignant and vivid conversation, death surfaces in unexpected ways, informing a