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In this small book the co-editors have attempted to present an “integrative review” of the advances in psychoanalysis since Freud. In addition to their own articles they have included contributions by psychoanalysts such as Kelman, Marmor, Weigert and others, as well as articles by analytically trained experts in related fields such as Landis in psychology, Reid in philosophy, and Montagu in anthropology.
The first article, by Salzman, is a brief critique of current analytic thinking, predominantly of the neo-Freudian and cultural schools. Along with many others, the author feels that while Freud's basic contributions have been affirmed, almost all of his theoretic formulations have been altered. Psychoanalysis is a young science and its concepts are constantly being modified and enriched by the findings of analytically trained workers in anthropology, sociology, and psychology. It is not ready for the closure that the classical orientation tends to impose. In this connection, he quotes Albert Einstein: “Concepts that have proved useful in the constitution of an order of things readily win such an authority over us, that we forget their earthly origins and take them to be changeless data.”
Salzman, in discussing certain orthodox concepts, writes that the unconscious is conceived as an encapsulated area with almost mechanical boundaries. For this reason he prefers Rado's concept of reporting and non-reporting mental processes. Of the libido theory, he observes that animal research by Harlow tends to negate this zonal psychology. Human development seems more dependent on the field of human interaction than on the conflict between libido and societal restraints (Fairbarn, Klein, Horney, and Sullivan). Szasz has summarized his objections to the libido theory by saying that instead of opening new fields for inquiry, it supplies answers to questions we no longer are interested in. As for the instinct theories, they seem naive and inadequate for these extraordinarily complex