Psychoanalysis: The Major Concepts, edited by Burness Moore and Bernard Fine,  Yale University Press, 1995,  577 ps.

The purpose of this volume, as stated by the editors in the preface, is to “survey the field of psychoanalysis, specify the areas of human behavior to which it has been applied, reexamine its scientific underpinnings, review the progress made, and assess the results” (p. xi). Conceived of as a companion volume to Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts , this book shares both the same editors and editorial board. The perspective of both of these volumes is “mainstream American psychoanalysis” (p. xi), that is, psychoanalysis as it is defined by the American Psychoanalytic Association. In fact, while Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts was published under the imprimatur of the American Psychoanalytic Association, this volume is published independently. However, this change does not help to expand the vision of this book which is still, at best “mainstream.”

The articles in this book are divided into two sections: Clinical Psychoanalysis and Theoretical Concepts. These two sections are further subdivided into eight sections; “Therapeutic Applications,” “Technical Issues,” “Other Clinical Phenomena,” “Factors Affecting Normality and Pathology,” “Instinct Theory, Sexuality and Affects,” “Development, Self, Objects and Identification,” “Conflict, Defense, Structural Theory and Metapsychology,” and “Psychoanalytic Education and Research.”