At War with the Obvious

"Donald Moss, a courageous and gifted psychoanalyst and writer, succeeds in taking imaginative leaps whilst keeping his feet firmly on the ground. He encourages us to accompany him ‘beyond the obvious’, as he illuminates a wide range of issues, clinical cultural and social. The book argues effectively for the ongoing relevance of psychoanalytic thought in the contemporary world."-Irma Brenman Pick, Distinguished Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society.

"Donald Moss, in At War with the Obvious, is an unsettling psychoanalytic thinker. "The obvious" is our complacency with yesterday’s "truths" and today’s half-shed biases concerning, for example, the "rightness" of heterosexuality; the psychopathology of transgender individuals; our collective certainties concerning what it means to be a man and to be a woman; our allegiance to the concepts of sexual aberration and sexual perversion. "The obvious" is our attraction to the binary, which protects us from contending with a yet to be named "third zone," which Moss invites us to attempt to imagine along with him."-Thomas H. Ogden, author most recently of Reclaiming Unlived Life: Experiences in Psychoanalysis and Creative Readings: Essays on Seminal Analytic Works.

"The surprising thing about Don Moss is that he is always surprising. With all of his probing sophistication, he dwells within a beginner’s mind—and this sparks not only his own creative awareness, but that of the reader’s. With this volume Moss sets his gaze broadly, deeply, urgently, intertwining the personal, the clinical, and the pressing social issues of our times. His vision is not only engaged, ethical, and political— it is subversive. Don Moss brings us to the edges."-Alfred Margulies, MD, faculty at Harvard Medical School and the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and author of The Empathic Imagination.

"Heeding the advice all writers receive but seldom follow-don’t tell, show, Donald Moss shows the constant battle one must wage with the obvious, whether working as a psychoanalyst in one’s practice or thinking as a psychoanalyst in the world. Moss’ many examples from the clinic and our culture demonstrate the relentless pull into what is already known and expectable, commonsensical and reasonable, against which a striving for authenticity must mobilize "erotic thought". With no place to stand outside the commonplace, at war with the obvious is also war with ourselves, illustrated through the arresting "disruptions" described throughout the book."-Bonnie E. Litowitz, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief, JAPA.

"Donald Moss, a courageous and gifted psychoanalyst and writer, succeeds in taking imaginative leaps whilst keeping his feet firmly on the ground. He encourages us to accompany him ‘beyond the obvious’, as he illuminates a wide range of issues, clinical cultural and social. The book argues effectively for the ongoing relevance of psychoanalytic thought in the contemporary world."-Irma Brenman Pick, Distinguished Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society.

"Donald Moss, in At War with the Obvious, is an unsettling psychoanalytic thinker. "The obvious" is our complacency with yesterday’s "truths" and today’s half-shed biases concerning, for example, the "rightness" of heterosexuality; the psychopathology of transgender individuals; our collective certainties concerning what it means to be a man and to be a woman; our allegiance to the concepts of sexual aberration and sexual perversion. "The obvious" is our attraction to the binary, which protects us from contending with a yet to be named "third zone," which Moss invites us to attempt to imagine along with him."-Thomas H. Ogden, author most recently of Reclaiming Unlived Life: Experiences in Psychoanalysis and Creative Readings: Essays on Seminal Analytic Works.

"The surprising thing about Don Moss is that he is always surprising. With all of his probing sophistication, he dwells within a beginner’s mind—and this sparks not only his own creative awareness, but that of the reader’s. With this volume Moss sets his gaze broadly, deeply, urgently, intertwining the personal, the clinical, and the pressing social issues of our times. His vision is not only engaged, ethical, and political— it is subversive. Don Moss brings us to the edges."-Alfred Margulies, MD, faculty at Harvard Medical School and the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and author of The Empathic Imagination.

"Heeding the advice all writers receive but seldom follow-don’t tell, show, Donald Moss shows the constant battle one must wage with the obvious, whether working as a psychoanalyst in one’s practice or thinking as a psychoanalyst in the world. Moss’ many examples from the clinic and our culture demonstrate the relentless pull into what is already known and expectable, commonsensical and reasonable, against which a striving for authenticity must mobilize "erotic thought". With no place to stand outside the commonplace, at war with the obvious is also war with ourselves, illustrated through the arresting "disruptions" described throughout the book."-Bonnie E. Litowitz, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief, JAPA.