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These subtle, fascinating case studies are psychoanalysis condensed. They run about 6 or so pages each. Everything inessential has been stripped away. We get the problem, the diagnosis, and the resolution or its semblance very quickly. There's the nine year old with autism whose hyper-acting out includes spitting in his analyst's [the author's] face five times a week for a year and a half. How far can one's compassion go? Or the HIV-positive patient who can do little more than sleep during his sessions. When the author presents his case at a conference, an American doctor asks: "Why are you wasting your time with this patient? He's going to die. Why not help someone who's got a future." The author is outraged. And as it turns out, the protease-inhibitors arrive in time and the patient lives for many years, is in fact still alive at the time the book is published. The essays are so lean, so fleet of foot and this is somehow connected �� this brevity, this concision �� to their ability to move us. I cannot recommend this slim volume highly enough. It's a near miraculous feat of writing.