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Anyone familiar with the many excellent books that Salman Akhtar has written or edited, knows the clarity and insightful observations they contain. This engaging text stands in that tradition. Dr. Akhtar's years of teaching, his clinical experience, his familiarity with the psychoanalytic corpus, and his poetic sensibilities come together as he addresses different dimensions of fundamental human experiences.
The book is divided into three sections: Life, Death, and Life and Death. In each of these chapters Akhtar addresses such topics as goodness, happiness, and playfulness, quoting other authors who have addressed these issues and offering his own perspective. He studies mortality, graves, and orphans; his final chapter is a summary reflection. His focus is on helping students, as well as the seasoned practitioner, reflect on some issues they are not likely to have studied in their training but which they will encounter in their treatment of individuals. How many class lectures has one heard on the psychoanalytic import of such topics as graves and/or orphans? Akhtar offers clinical vignettes of the resolution of grief facilitated by an analyst's sensitivity to what visiting gravesites can offer. Dr. Akhtar brings not only his Indian cultural heritage to bear on his thoughts but also, as mentioned earlier, his poetic sensitivity. While reading this work I was reminded of the great Indian poet Tagore (1949), who wrote, “Death belongs to life as birth does. The walk is in the raising of the foot as in the laying of it down.” The profound wisdom of these simple lines transcends much psychoanalytic complexity, as reflected, for example, in our convoluted discussions of a possible “death instinct.” Without sacrificing insight, Akhtar avoids technical jargon and