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There is no doubt about it; psychoanalytic theory is in a state of flux. A few years ago, in the United States at least, a fourth-year course for candidates in advanced theory, not having a suitable textbook, could make do with a small number of references, centering about the works of S. and A. Freud, Fenichel, Hartmann, Kris, Loewenstein, Brenner, Arlow, Beres, Erikson, and Rapaport—with excursions into the British literature. Not so nowadays. The student is apt to be buffeted by ideas not only from developmental studies and speculations about the "self," but from information theory, linguistics, neurophysiology, psychoendocrinology, philosophy, and general systems theory, among others. The harassed teacher, wishing to be thought neither eclectic nor dogmatic, craves direction. So far he has been disappointed.
The authors of Modern Psychoanalytic Concepts in a General Psychology open with the remark that their work grew "out of an attempt to teach a subject for which we found no adequate text," there being "as yet no satisfactory, comprehensive, systematic survey of psychoanalytic theory" (p. xi). Presumably Rosenblatt and Thickstun intend to provide one in a monumental undertaking, of which the present work represents only two parts, general concepts and motivation. Still to come are works on maturation and development, learning, perception, cognition, integration, and control. They promise a lot. At this point, even if these are only the first two parts of a massive work, enough is provided to pose the following questions: Is this a comprehensive survey of psychoanalytic theories? Does it fairly represent the current state of theorizing? Is it a textbook? If it is not a text, but a more ambitious set of special arguments for replacing so-called standard theory with a new and particular theory, is it systematic? More important, is it satisfactory?
Something can be learned about a book by looking at the company authors keep—as well as wondering about t