Are we Sure we want to Call it a Plague?

For whom is this book written? And who is most likely to read it? The first question is easier to answer: Bringing the Plague challenges all clinical psychoanalysts to consider how postmodernism—particularly as articulated by constructivist epistemologies and poststructural criticism—alters every aspect of clinical practice. However, just how many analysts want postmodernism to have such far-reaching impact on their clinical practice? Perhaps many, feeling what Freud, in his quip to Jung on their transatlantic voyage, attributed to his American audience—that they wouldn't be so excited if they realized that he was bringing them the plague—will not be so likely to pick up this book. This avoidance would be a shame. The collection of essays makes the case that postmodernism effects a profound and inescapable transformation of traditional psychoanalytic formulations that is on a par with psychoanalysis' original impact on American culture in the early to mid-20th century. With two provisos, this thesis is right, and, for reasons I explain here, I like Fairfield, Layton, and Stack's (2002) title, even though I admit to some misgivings about seeing either postmodernism or psychoanalysis as a plague.