This book, published nearly half a century after Freud's death, bears testimony to his influence on one who could scarcely have known him, but that need not detract from its significance. The introduction is by Helm Stierlin, the translation by Arnold J. Pomerans.

There are several roots that coalesce in the creation of a volume largely dedicated to bringing to bear the influence of family therapy on the data of psychoanalysis (Marianne Kruell is a sociologist), but there are other complexities as well. The author is a close personal friend of Sophie Freud Loewenstein who also brings together psychoanalysis and sociology, but with the particular slant of a sympathy toward feminism, which was not always prominent in the Freudian household. When to this is added the particular weight Kruell has given to reconciling her own Germanic ancestry with the outlook of the Freuds, it can readily be understood that a unique blend ensues.

A relevant quotation from Freud at the beginning avows that the