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This book was written for teachers at all levels by two psychotherapists at the Tavistock Clinic in London, and an educational psychologist at that institution. The theoretical background is largely Kleinian, but not overwhelmingly so. The Tavistock Clinic apparently offers a course for classroom teachers at all levels, from elementary through college. The scene moves back and forth from the experiences of the teachers in this course as students, to vignettes of their experiences as teachers with their students. The writers also tell of what they learn as they teach these teachers. There might be some question as to what value such a book might have for psychoanalysts, but it is as pertinent to teaching in a psychoanalytic institute as at some earlier level. I certainly have been impressed at how middle-aged psychiatrists can begin acting like adolescents as soon as they start formal training. Their resistances to learning material whose relevance is not immediately apparent can be as extreme as those of any high school class.
The first section, "Beginnings," deals sensitively with the anxieties and defenses of starting any new learning experience, and includes some basic psychoanalytic theory about separation anxiety and stranger anxiety. Effects of the environment as well as internal variables in students are considered, with some inferences as to how to reduce the stress for students entering a new learning experience.
The second section discusses the relationships of students and teachers. Teachers may be seen in a variety of roles—source of wisdom, comforter, object of envy, judge or authority. The author explains these distortions on the basis of transference, with individual examples. It could be particularly important for teachers of elementary level to understand the transference implications of pregnancy or illness on children who have experienced such events with parents. The next chapter reviews, in similar fashion, the teacher's expectations o