Unutterably tedious twaddle. No wonder they call this pseudoscience.

Look, I don't know anything about psychoanalysis. I admit it. I picked this up, thinking "Oh, a journal by a woman who studied with Freud, this might be interesting" and it was very much not. This is not your average journal. This is academic recapping, and even her reports of the constant low-level bitching between practitioners is not enough to inject a sense of life and motion into the prose. Which is a shame, as when the author's not waffling on about what sounds like absolute rubbish, her prose is lucid and entertaining. Unfortunately, ninety-five percent of this is her brain on psychoanalysis, and it is unconvincing woolliness all the way through. I don't understand what she's on about... which wouldn't be a problem, necessarily, except I'm not convinced any of them understand it either. They sound like people convinced of their own bullshit more than anything else, and there's so much here that is clearly claptrap (albeit I at least am writing with the benefit of hindsight). 

I am fully prepared to read wrong or confusing things so long as the prose is entertaining. To my great regret, this is a translation. I wish it were not. The opportunity for someone - anyone! - to encourage Andreas-Salomé to take her fascination with human sexuality and reflect on the multiple meanings of the word "turgid" would be too great to ignore.

Never again.