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Giovacchini's A Clinician's Guide to Reading Freud might be reasonably retitled Giovacchini's Reinterpretation of Freud. The author's stated purpose in writing this book is to provide the uninitiated with a guide to reading Freud. His implicit goal, never clearly stated, seems to be a reinterpretation of Freud into a theory that is unifactorial and adaptational in its emphasis.
Giovacchini begins without a clear introductory statement of what guided his selections from Freud's larger work. The reader has to proceed to the appendix for a limited "Course Outline." It is clear that Giovacchini has read Freud closely. His summaries are good and informative with the exception of his review of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, which is poor. However, it is difficult to separate review and summary from commentary, hypothesis, and sometimes idiosyncratic reinterpretation.
This book suffers from being too personal and ambitious, which detracts from the author's fine distillation of many of Freud's works. In addition, it is written in a disjointed style that may derive in part from the book's origin in the author's transcript of a reading seminar. Finally, there are oversimplifications and inexact and, in my opinion, incorrect statements concerning the development of Freud's ideas.
Giovacchini begins with a discussion of "The Unconscious" because "the dynamic unconscious … was one of the most unique and magnificent findings of psychoanalysis." Chapter Two, "Studies on Hysteria" provides the reader with a good description of some of the differences between Freud and Breuer. He delineates their shared interest in psychic trauma and their theoretical differences: Breuer's hypnoid theory and Freud's beginning development of a conception of unconscious conflict and defensive repression. Giovacchini selects "Further Remarks on the Defense Neuropsychoses" because this paper represents a logical extension of Freud's interest in and emphasis on the dynamic unconscious. Giova