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Stefano Bolognini, an eminent Italian psychoanalyst and the current President of the International Psychoanalytic Association, writes with a light touch. He avoids jargon as much as possible and cites literature only when necessary. His oeuvre extends beyond the writings of psychoanalysts to those of gastroenterologists, Zen masters, novelists, and even dog experts. His writing has a relaxed and endearingly conversational quality. However, such ‘lightness’ never sacrifices a nuanced discourse on the topic at hand, regardless of whether it pertains to the theoretical plurality in contemporary psychoanalysis, the place of Freud in a working analyst's mind, the pivotal role of preconscious mental functioning, the décor of analytic offices, thing and word presentations, courage and counterphobia, interpretative action, psychosexuality of mucous membranes, or the relationship between man and dog. In each of these realms, Bolognini links surface and depth, clinical observations and day-to-day experience, new and old psychoanalysis, and, above all, a disarmingly personal narrative with intricate theoretical infrastructure.
Allow me now to comment upon 3 out of the 12 chapters of this book in some detail. My choice is somewhat arbitrary, although heeding to Bolognini's counsel, I leave the possibility open for finding that some deeper current within my mind, as yet un-discernible, has led me to this choice. That being said, I wish to begin my piecemeal discussion of Bolognini's book by taking up its first chapter. Titled ‘Freud's objects: plurality and complexity in the internal world and in the analyst's working self’, this chapter (pp. 7–26) starts by noting that the profusion of antiquities in Freud's office reflected his ‘need of interlocutors in effigie concreta’ (pp. 8–9, italics in the original); Freud suffered from the loneliness of being a pioneer and needed the reassuring, evocative, rationalizing, and containing company of these intriguing figurines (see also Akht