Book Notices

MY LANGUAGE IS ME. PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH A DISTURBED ADOLESCENT. By Beulah Parker. Foreword by Theodore Lidz. New York: Basic Books, 1962, viii + 397 pp., $8.50.

The presentation of verbatim reconstruction of 200 hours in the treatment of a disturbed boy (either schizophrenic or preschizophrenic) of sixteen is interspersed with discussions of the author's theoretical and technical views, her analytic interpretations of what went on in the interviews, and an account of her own emotions during the course of treatment. This was an autistic boy in whom the language process had been severely disturbed; much discussion centers on the nature of the verbal communications and the author's laborious and successful attempt to "'tune in' on a highly personal thought process." The author herself presents the case history "primarily as a study in the development of direct communication." "The interchange with David was conducted by a therapist of basically Freudian orientation within the theoretical concepts on work with autistic patients delineated and published by workers from Chestnut Lodge."

DEVELOPMENTS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS. By Leon Salzman. New York, London: Grune & Stratton, 1962, ix + 302 pp., $7.75.

The author, a member of the Washington Psychoanalytic Society and the American Psychoanalytic Association, professes great admiration for the contributions of Sigmund Freud. At the same time, in his proposal to "present some of the developments in psychiatric and psychoanalytic theory that have grown out of Freud's original contributions, " he heaps encomiums on Jung, Adler, Stekel, Horney, Sullivan, Rado, Fromm, Clara Thompson, and Bernard Robbins (who discarded the concept of the unconscious). Practically every concept with which "classic" psychoanalysts work in theory and practice, such as instinct theory, the structural concept, the theory of anxiety, the oedipal conflict, castration anxiety, infantile sexuality, etc., is all but eliminated. What remains may perhaps