Psychoanalysis: The Vital Issues. Vol. II: Clinical Psychoanalysis and its Applications: Edited by John E. Gedo and George H. Pollock. Madison, Conn.: Int. Univ. Press, 1984, XIV + 498 pp., $42.50.

This second volume of papers presented at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute is divided into six sections, each introduced with a brief commentary by one of the conference participants. They include: "Transference and Countertransference," "Self Psychology and Its Alternatives," "Outcome Studies," "Theoretical Problems," "Applications in the Literary Realm," and "The History of Psychoanalysis in Chicago." Fourteen of the participants represented in this volume are from the Chicago Institute; seven are from other psychoanalytic centers.

As is characteristic in volumes such as this, the quality of the contributions is variable, and each is essentially an independently standing contribution even though the editors have attempted to group them in a manner reflecting their general subject matter.

For this reviewer the two most interesting contributions in this volume are in significant disagreement with each other. A paper by Heinz Kohut, "Introspection, Empathy, and the Semi-Circle of Mental Health," presented as a plenary address, is one of his last presentations prior to his death. In it he emphasizes his final conceptual implications of self psychology. for Kohut the concept of biological drives is no longer acceptable; instead, he emphasizes an exclusively psychological theoretical system. For him, empathy is not only a form of information