Ascertaining the genre of this volume has been difficult. It is much more than memoire, book of poetry, case study, dream journal, and travelogue. It is all that, plus their integration into a creative product. It begins before the author's birth, when enterprising Grandfather Joseph Abrahams came to America, soon to meet a mysterious death. The extended family to follow prospered, and his grandson Joseph likewise pursued the American dream, first in Texas, then New England, New York, and during the war years, much of America. In the course of a career in psychoanalysis, he ventured into study of his own inner world for understanding of his life drives. There analysis of his dreams have been central, then a bent for poetry. The result is this volume, centering about a protracted rendezvous with death, surfacing with an epic poem, entitled, A Passionate Psychoanalyst.