Recent Books on Psychoanalytic Technique—A Comparative Study1

There are three publications in the technical literature which stand as landmarks in the history of psychoanalysis: Freud's Papers on Technique(20), Glover's Lectures on Technique(30), and Fenichel's Problems of Psychoanalytic Technique(12). Glover's Lectures, originally delivered to the students of the London Institute of Psycho-Analysis in 1927-1928 and first published in book form shortly thereafter (31), have reappeared in a revised form, enriched by the author's increased experience and deepened by the discoveries of the past three decades. This new book, The Technique of Psycho-Analysis by Edward Glover (37), not only offers the student a rare opportunity to review the application of the Freudian method in close association with the theoretical tenets upon which psychoanalysis is founded, but provides the experienced analyst with a cinemascopic view of this vast subject. For the purpose of this essay it also serves as an excellent background for a comparative study of the other recent publications on technique which present deviations from the classical approach: Benjamin Wolstein's Transference: Its Meaning and Function in Psychoanalytic Therapy(56), Izette de Forest's The Leaven of Love: A Development of the Psychoanalytic Theory and Technique of Sandor Ferenczi(8), and Trygve Braatøy's Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique(7).

Edward Glover is in a unique position to write on the subject of psychoanalytic technique. Scottish by birth and trained in Berlin, he has always been an assiduous student of Freudian psychoanalytic thought. As a member of the British Group, he was exposed to and