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At a time when many consider psychoanalytic thinking outmoded and when a myriad new therapies have sprung up, Dr. Shapiro's book, which illustrates Freudian tenets and their applications, is both welcome and refreshing.
This is the author's second volume and a sequel to Moment of Insight, published in 1978. In the first volume, clinical excerpts were presented which demonstrated that insight can lead to psychological change. One of the criticisms of the first book was that it made the psychoanalytic process look too easy. Consequently, Dr. Shapiro undertook a more ambitious project in the new volume, seeking to demonstrate the dynamic and genetic aspects of conflict.
Some of the illustrations presented are very similar in nature to those in the first volume in that the vignettes show the development of insight by the analyst which is then shared with the patient. For example, "Hang Up" describes a young man who had been raised on a farm. The child suffered from a sense of discomfort and indignity at having to use the family outhouse. The patient, now a young adult, was unable to use a public telephone. Dr. Shapiro recognized that the telephone booth, with which the patient was unfamiliar, reminded him of the dreaded outhouse.
Another case report, entitled "Alas Poor Yorick" presents in narrative form illustrations of the Oedipus complex, the development of defenses, and the utilization of psychoanalytic counseling. Dana, who lost her mother when she was five, developed a very close attachment to her father. She married a solid and unexciting man, and they moved to an apartment close to where her father resided. A short time later, Dana's father was killed in a freak accident. Dana did not show signs of mourning; in fact she seemed to adjust well to the loss. Some months later she became depressed and withdrawn, and Dr. Shapiro elected to work with her husband, who had come to discuss his wife's plight. He helped the husband to develop an understanding of h