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“Each of the schools of psychoanalytic thought presented in this book is a theoretical system with an inner coherence of its own. In writing I have tried to feel myself into each system as a whole, thinking for the nonce in terms of its major premises and working through to its conclusions …” Thus begins Dr. Ruth Munroe in Schools of Psychoanalytic Thought, her eminently successful contribution to psychoanalytic literature. Munroe, stating her general orientation as Freudian, acknowledges her adherence to Freud's specific ideas and their later development within the framework of the American and the International Psychoanalytic Associations. Having in this way identified her position, however, she has not been averse to criticizing what she considers the shortcomings of the Freudian viewpoint, nor has she attempted to minimize the contributions of the other groups. She has even introduced into the presentation a concept of her own, which she calls the “self image.”
In order to encompass such a vast amount of material in an organized fashion she has selected neutral headings under which all of the major tenets of each school can be considered. In the initial chapters she presents her own background and interests, her choice of terms, and her aims, namely, to present the major guidelines developed by each school for “helping the patient toward a better integration of his own life as a person, in his special relations with his milieu,” and to offer critical comments on each group. She elaborates her material under the headings of the terms of the Organism, the terms of the Milieu, the genetic process, the dynamics of the functioning personality, and pathology and treatment.
She divides the main portion of the book into Freud and the Freudians who accept the libido theory, and Adler, Horney, Fromm, and Sullivan who reject it, as well as Jung and Rank who repudiated the theory but whose works she considers separately. In reviewing Freud and the Freudians, Munroe more than