True Pretences: Psychodynamic Work with the Lost, the Angry and the Depressed

This book of essays reminds us of the great range of understanding that the insights of psychoanalysis make available to those prepared to work both within and outside its conventional boundaries. It explores the nature of suicide, pain, female perversions, sadomasochism and teenage runaways. The book includes a chapter on the psychoanalytic meaning of skin, with a footnote on the poet Sylvia Plath. Two other controversial essays contrast the meanings of freedom and authority in the development of the delinquent character. Both essays question the prevailing treatments to rehabilitate these violent youngsters. An original and flexible mind, linked to a deeply empathic and truthful heart, gives a sense of unity to a series of essays on some of todays moral dilemmas, and the help that the psychoanalytic approach can make available.