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This slim volume does not deserve the critical praise it has received. While very easy to read, and in some ways enjoyable, it has - in my view - several serious flaws.

First Grosz makes no effort to put each personal story into any sort of theoretical context. Just at the point that the reader asks 'so what does that mean or imply for us more generally', Grosz moves on to the next story. Not only does this leave us often simply unclear why he has included that example, and not another, but indeed unclear as to whether there is any relevant body of theory or if rather, psychoanalysis is no more than a series of unrelated anecdotal findings.

I can appreciate the view that every individual requires individual analysis, but this brings us to the second flaw: that laying out a set of individual cases in this way encourages the reader to look for herself or himself in the patients Grosz describes, with no caution about the potential risks of such self-diagnosis.

As a result this felt too little like an encouragement for careful reflection or 'examination' of the ethical or moral worth of the lives we live, and more a vicarious and at times even prurient sequence of disconnected and unexplained (if engaging) personal studies. In this light I was relieved that Grosz writes that he sought permission of each of the patients he describes - even though he disguised their identities. But unfortunately the uniform response he reports - that they were happy for their stories to be shared if it might help others - is not fulfilled by this book.