The author of this ambitious book is a well-known German psychoanalyst. He holds the chair for psychoanalysis of the University of Frankfurt am Main, a rare distinction in Europe. A previous book by him found wide interest.1

Freud had the intention, writes Argelander, to write a comprehensive work about psychoanalytic technique, but he never fulfilled this plan. In 1904, he wrote that the details of this interpretive technique had not been described, and even the pieces of advice in The Interpretation of Dreams are only forerunners of such work.

Argelander thinks it is now possible to write it. He attempts to describe the cognitive process of analytic practice and to investigate the significance of the rules for it. We are inclined to react spontaneously in our practical work without trying to account for the process that takes place in the patient and in us. He is afraid that the concept