Book Review: Making Sense by Martin Stanton

Abstract

Are we being taken for a ride? Certainly. Stanton audaciously unzips and spills the traditions of radical psychoanalytic thought into the here and now, unleashing lines of flight from the vital forces of art, dream, humour and imagination into the therapeutic enterprise. Creating an ‘incessant carnival of insane and inspired improvisation’, (Chesterton 2007 in Beaumont 2020 p131) the book travels from the proverbial sublime to the ridiculous, but it is absolutely no joke. By taking the risk of ‘joining a lineage of great works which mix up abstractions fit for an epic with fooleries not fit for a pantomime’ (Chesterton 1909 in Beaumont 2020 p131) Stanton provides food for thought, puzzle and inspiration which will be welcomed by all therapists who are trying to make sense of a world that is increasingly out of order.