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Reviewing this book has been a pleasure. It is based on the lectures given by the author to mental health professionals at the Tavistock Centre over a period of seven years. The introduction makes clear his unique personal approach to the problem of outlining the nature of psychoanalysis; in particular he stresses its devotion to truth and the fact that it consists in the relationship between two people.
Following this the next eleven chapters deal with Freud's discoveries and with his dual approach to mental problems - evolutionist and physicalistic on the one hand, but romantic and psychological on the other. Far from deploring this marriage Symington extols it. Two chapters are devoted to dreams. In discussing Freud's work he points out that Freud's recognition of traumatic dreams damaged the wish-fulfilment theory that had dominated his thinking - indeed Symington suggests that this was an idee fixe of Freud. Dream research associated with the REM phenomenon has led to a reappraisal of the function of dreaming, and varioud modern theories are briefly discussed.
After a chapter on transference the author proceeds to an interesting discussion of Freud's instinct (or drive) theories. He properly distinguishes Freud's biological death instinct concept from Klein's psychological one. The death drive in Freud's sense really does have the aim to restore a former (inanimate) state of affairs, but the same cannot be said of Eros whose aim is life; Eros and Thanatos belong to different categories and should not be classed together (in Freud's manner) as instincts or drives. There follow chapters on the topographical and structural models of Freud. Under the heading ‘Freud's Contemporaries’ there are stimulating discussions of Abraham, of Jones on symbols, and of Ferenczi, as well as a more extended, sympathetic exposition of the position of Jung. Symington feels that both Freudian and Jungian psychologies have suffered in consequence of the break between the two men.
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