-The Vale of Soul-Making- promises to become the text for post-Kleinian thought.. and the upshot of it all is to establish Mrs Klein as the first 'post-Kleinian'.--- Donald Meltzer

Poets have always seen themselves as inspired by their Muse. In this book this is taken literally, not just metaphorically, to be a faithful description of an internal identification with a teaching object or deity that governs the adventure of writing the poem. The central concern of the book is therefore the relationship of each individual poet with his Muse, as worked out -on the pulses- through the...

-This book offers a definitive reading of Bion's remarkable autobiographical writings from a perspective embedded in the poetry of the ages, that of the Romantics in particular. It is at once learned and, utterly freshly, able to explore the inside story of Bion's life and mind. The volume is a distillation and elaboration of the work of many years. Whilst ostensibly an extended commentary on the autobiographical works themselves, it is also, in its own right, a tour de force, engaging, as it does, with the heart of the matter: with the development of a psychoanalyst, of a life, a self, a...