Donald Kaplan's writings confront the reader with one of the most creative and electrifying minds within contemporary psychoanalysis. From Kaplan's original contributions on psychopathology to his challenging contemporary reading of Freud, from the subtleties of his psychoanalytic approach to patients to his daring application of psychoanalytic thinking to social reality and cultural currents, Kaplan stimulates the reader to an analysis in depth of a broad spectrum of clinical and theoretical issues. The broadening of his perspective throughout the years, the impressive maturing of his contributions to applied psychoanalysis reflected in the many contributions of the last fifteen years point to the terrible loss that his premature death signifies for the psychoanalytic community. Kaplan's discussion of the relationship between psychoanalytic theory and the sociological approach to gender represents a fundamental contribution to the psychopathology of conformity. His clinical observations on shyness, dream analysis, depression, and inhibition of creativity should be of enormous practical value to the psychotherapist and psychoanalyst. Kaplan's application of psychoanalytic thinking to the work of the artist, to the relationship between the actor's character and his role, and to artistic creativity broadens the challenging contributions to the psychopathology of conformity into a general theory of applied psychoanalysis.