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One wonders for whom this book is written-certainly not for the child psychiatrist. There is little in it that the common sense of dealing with the developing child and his family hadn't already taught him, not being encumbered by the rites of analysis. Great gaps in our knowledge of child psychiatry remain, but there is no evidence that orthodox “adult” psychoanalytic theory fills them. Oedipal problems, castration anxiety, and other standbys of “adult” psychoanalysis are not easily or with certainty identified and connected with the problems of the child, in whom their occurrence is postulated, and in whom their appearance should come out clearest; nor, for that matter, are transference, resistance, etc. as applied to the child. Recognition of this is, in fact, admitted because the place where this book comes from is called, with the blessings of the British Psycho-Analytic Society, the “Hampstead Child-Therapy Clinic,” though the Introduction hastens to add, “… the method of therapy practiced and taught at the clinic was and is that of child analysis.”
What the authors seem to be saying is that “adult” psychoanalysis is the preferred methodology for children, too, if only they didn't behave like children. Therefore, regrettably, all kinds of compromises and adjustments have to be made. From the point of view of this acknowledgment, the book performs a real service. Whereas the standard formulations, such as the ones mentioned above, are sufficient to establish analytic orthodoxy, caution is advised as well as urging consideration of other, nonanalytic factors. In this regard, Anna Freud is particularly strong. She is lucid in her comments and in modulating, perhaps, her overzealous followers.
So, again the question: for whom is this book written? One must surmise, for the students of the Hampstead Child-Therapy Clinic, who have to “fulfill all the requirements of the usual psychoanalytic training program…. The Hampstead Clinic differs from the traditional child gui