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In these times of competing psychoanalytic perspectives and significant change, the task of retaining what is valid, of creating solid new ideas, and of integrating them while avoiding power struggles is a great challenge. At a 1996 seminar in New York, this challenge was met successfully by an outstanding group of Freudian psychoanalysts from the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Their papers, and an additional invited contribution, have found a home in The Modern Freudians: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Technique. This book, an admirable attempt to provide a framework for retaining the old while understanding newer analytic paradigms, is a model of communication and integration in this period of psychoanalytic transition. Difficulties inherent in the goals of the book and in psychoanalysts' efforts at communication come to life in the contributions.
The authors bring to the reader an excellent picture of what is Freudian about contemporary psychoanalysis. They spell out which Freudian principles have endured as fundamental in our field and why they have retained their relevance. Along the way, ideas that have been discarded or modified are addressed. The authors gathered here reflect the diversity in thinking among analysts currently working in the Freudian tradition. While most of their papers are clear, well researched, and respectful of the ideas of others, a few unfortunately fall short of this standard.
Two of the strongest contributions are found at the book's beginning and at its end. Arnold D. Richards and Arthur Lynch walk the reader through a quick but clear historical overview from ego psychology to contemporary conflict theory. In a scholarly way, they elucidate the influences and controversies in the evolution of psychoanalysis and give