Assuming the voices of psychoanalyst, scholar, and postmodern polemicist, Julia Kristeva discusses both the conflicts and commonalities among the Greek, Christian, Roman, and contemporary discourses on love, desire, and self. Her analysis deals with the role of narcissism and idealization in the formation of a love object. She accounts for the role of the death drive by coining the term "love/hate."

"The analytical work is punctuated throughout by the personal, so that intelligently moving thoughts on motherhood aptly intervene. Kristeva makes a very strong case for the claim that the goal of analysis is not a truth in but a dynamic rebirth of the analysand via language." - Choice