Freedom to Relate: Psychoanalytic Explorations

What is the relationship between psychoanalysis and human freedom? Does psychoanalysis enhance it? Is it coercive? What are the limits? These may appear to be deceptively simple questions, but Roger Kennedy addresses them head-on. He draws on his own clinical work to shed light on conceptions of freedom and how they relate to the psychoanalytic process. Ideas from ancient, medieval, 17th-century, Enlightenment and recent philosophy, including hermeneutics, are employed in his explorations. He also addresses himself to recent pessimistic and postmodernist writings on culture and the human condition.