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Those who have had the privilege of hearing Martin Bergmann present or discuss ideas know that he distinguishes himself not only by his erudition; he has a unique capacity for combining intellectual acuity with warm, personal charm. In the same style, The Anatomy of Loving is an extraordinarily rich and broad series of intellectual discussions that link “myths, legends, and theories of philosophers of the classical past to dreams and neuroses of modern men and women.” It is addressed not only to those “who need to understand … the contributions of psychoanalysis to love … to be more effective in their clinical work … [but] to those who will read the book because they are bewildered about the outcome of their efforts to find happiness in love.” Touchingly, it is dedicated to Martin's wife with a most romantic stanza from Jeremiah II, 2.
Perhaps The Anatomy of Loving is also an expression of Martin Bergmann's loving dedication to Freud and psychoanalysis, one that transcends intellectual and clinical interests. With this book, Bergmann corrects Freud's neglect to acknowledge his debt to Plato, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. According to Bergmann, while in Freud's lifetime he could not risk having psychoanalysis viewed as a “latter-day, warmed-up platonic philosophy,” today psychoanalysis can gain by being seen as having its origins in the humanistic roots of Western civilization. Bergmann believes that there is an unconscious continuity linking myths, legends, and theories of classical philosophers to modern dreams and neuroses.
On one level, the chapters in this book (several having been published previously as journal articles) are discrete presentations of love as perceived in specific cultures by poets and philosophers, including the psychoanalysts of our time. On another, the book as a whole is a historical documentation of the changing concepts of love. A separate explicit discussion of the developmental aspects of these changes might have been helpful to the reader