Beautifully translated from French, The Taming of Solitude brings together the views of Freud, Klein, Hanna Segal, W. R. D. Fairbairn, D. W. Winnicott, Anna Freud, Margaret Mahler, Heinz Kohut, John Bowlby and others, presenting a comprehensive approach to the experience of loneliness, a universal phenomenon which can be observed in everyday life and in any therapeutic situation.

Jean-Michel Quinodoz begins by using a clinical example to illustrate how a patient expresses various forms of separation anxiety and how such anxiety can be transformed during the psychoanalytic process. He then examines the major psychoanalytic views on the topic and explores several technical and clinical aspects of the problems which arise from the interpretation of separation anxiety. Finally, Quinodoz introduces the concept, ``buoyancy'', to express how a successful working through of separation anxiety can lead to a capacity to ``carry'' oneself at the end of analysis.