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This “controversial” (p. ix) book represents an attempt not merely to register a comprehensive and deep critical analysis of contemporary psychoanalytic theory, but it also presents an ambitious effort to rescue and perhaps even integrate the apparently wide and disparate varieties of approaches to a dynamic conceptualization of mind. Mills states in his preface,
The scope of this book is largely preoccupied with tracing (a) philosophical underpinnings of contemporary theory, (b) its theoretical relation to traditional psychoanalytic thought, (c) clinical implications for therapeutic practice, (d) political and ethical ramifications of contemporary praxis, and (e) its intersection with points of consilience that emerge from these traditions. (p. xi)
Jon Mills is well equipped to carry forward such a project. He is a trained clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, and, as a philosopher, he is a proficient practitioner of a sophisticated form of analysis of ideas. He identifies himself as a “relationalist” psychoanalyst; nevertheless, he is also not caught up in the attractions of group or clan adherence. He is an independent and serious thinker
The book is composed of seven chapters dealing with errors in the processes of reasoning about psychoanalytic theories of the mind, especially those of relational psychoanalysis, as propounded by Mitchell (1988), Greenberg (1991), and others. It also includes a detailed critique of postmodern and intersubjective theories. For those who prize the accuracy and validity of their own abstract thinking about psychoanalytic ideas, the book requires close and deep study—it is not a page turner.
The reader must prepare himself or herself for the terminological tangle that Mills, the philosopher, uses with abundance. It seems to be not only a question of individual style, but also a product of Mills's ambition to explicitly rationalize the vast landscape of psychoanalytic theorizing and speculation.