Book Reviews

Another year, another set of intentions? If you, like me, have set out to read more books this year, then the review section may provide some food for thought.

The section kicks off with two reviews of the same book. Russell's Nietzsche and the Clinic proved in demand last summer and I believe it is a thought-provoking exercise to consider the two reviews side by side. Each has a distinct voice and style, and takes a distinctively enlightening perspective on the works and thoughts of an important existential philosopher.

These two are followed by a review of Holzhey-Kunz's Daseinanalysis, which is concerned with practising psychoanalysis from a hermeneutic-existential perspective. Gottlieb's Dream of Enlightenment covers the evolution of Western philosophy between the 1630s until the French Revolution, and Thompson's Death of Desire combines original insights from the existential and psychoanalytic traditions. The last book reviewed in this section is After Psychotherapy, a work that contains a selection of Miles Groth's essays on existential therapy.

The six books reviews are followed by a review of a documentary, The Work. We already touched upon film in the last Existential Analysis issue when we published a review of Roberts' Real to Reel (on the role of psychiatry and mental disability in selected films). In this issue, I wanted to include a review in the film category. The Work, which concerns a long-standing group therapy programme in a US prison, may have been an obvious choice because of its subject matter, but for a film review to appear in this section it does not need to be about therapy or contain obvious existential elements or themes. It should have enough of a mood or tone so that it can be reviewed through an existential lens for our existential and psychotherapeutic readers. As a next step and to draw out other reviewers, I have added a few potential film ideas to a new film category at the back of this section. This list is by no means comprehensive and it is open to other suggestions. I look forward to hearing from you.

Ondine Smulders