The author of this text claims that psychoanalysis offers in its clinical goals and its vision of possibility, insight into the nature of subjectivity and the quality of good relations with others. It continues centuries of reflection and imagination about the good life.

Drawing upon her broad knowledge and background in social theory, Chodorow argues that psychoanalysis gives an account of subjectivity that incorporates forms of wholeness and depth of experience, without which we cannot have a meaningful life.