By Emanuel Peterfreund. Hillsdale, N.J.: Analytic Press, 1983, 288 pp., $24.95.

In this book directed to clinicians, the author presents his personal convictions about the nature of the psychoanalytic process, based on his own analytic work and with a predilection for the language of information processing. He argues convincingly against stereotyped thinking and demonstrates the significance of early childhood patterns in a dyadic setting, but his theoretical outlook is more problematic.

In the opening sections, Peterfreund sets forth two approaches to psychoanalytic therapy—the stereotyped approach and the heuristic approach. The stereotyped approach is a form of applied psychoanalysis, in which clinical theory is imposed on the patient's