"This book proposes creative living as a response to neoliberalism--the instrumentalist, individualistic, opportunistic, and narcissistic ethos that has permeated social life in the West at least since the Second World War. At the level of the individual neoliberalism is reflected in self-optimization, the attempt that many people make to constantly improve their performance and efficiency, especially in the context of their working lives but increasingly in their personal lives as well. In this view the self is assumed to be perfectible, and effort and a positive attitude are all it takes to augment our productivity on every level, thereby becoming happier and more successful. From making "rational" choices about our education-for instance, by choosing law school or business school over a graduate degree in the humanities-to making sure that we eat well, exercise regularly, and marry the right kind of partner, we are optimizing our lives without even necessarily realizing that this is what we are doing. That we have marginalized fields that have historically been associated with creativity rather than with quantifiable "knowledge" says a great deal about our current social priorities. Mari Ruti and Gail Newman present an alternative to this mentality, arguing that psychoanalysis, which almost by definition encourages the flourishing of the creative self, offers a means of combating self-optimization by assisting analysands to find purpose and meaning in their lives and to mobilize their creative potential. No thinkers better characterize this effort than Marion Milner and D. W. Winnicott. Friends who were deeply influenced by each other's work, nothing mattered more to them than the liberation of the individual's creative potentialities. Both Milner's attempt to extract from each day the item, object, moment, or experience that most made her happy or piqued her interest and Winnicott's theorization of the parameters of a true self-the kind of self that is capable of exercising the full range of its creative potentialities-provide us with a blueprint for creative living. Milner and Winnicott define creativity broadly as any activity that brings meaning, substance, or pleasure to the individual's life: not limited to intellectual, artistic, or spiritual achievements, it entails the capacity to build a life that feels worth living. Both recognize that it is a second-order consideration, addressable only after the basics of survival have been attended to; it is at the same time a luxury and a necessity for the psychic, affective, and physical well-being of human beings. This paradox hovers as the backdrop to ontological and existential questions about the contours of human life, such as what the so-called "good life" might entail and what might bring vitality and meaningfulness to individual lives; it resides at the core of creativity. The quest for a rewarding life cannot be separated from the psychic and affective realities of lack, negativity, and nothingness; the creative self is more resilient in the face of adversity because it accepts loss as a necessary component of human life"--