Foundations for Conceptual Research in Psychoanalysis by Anna Ursula Dreher, translated by Eva Ristl. Monograph No. 4, Monograph Series of the Psychoanalysis Unit of University College London and the Anna Freud Centre, London (series editors: Joseph Sandler and Peter Fonagy). Published by  Karnac Books, London and New York, 2000;  208 pages, £19.95 paperback. Clinical and Observational Psychoanalytic Research: Roots of a Controversy edited by Joseph Sandler, Anne-Marie Sandler and Rosemary Davies. Monograph No. 5, Monograph Series of the Psychoanalysis Unit of University College London and the Anna Freud Centre London (series editors: Joseph Sandler and Peter Fonagy). Published by  Karnac Books, London and New York, 2000;  162 pages, £16.95 paperback.

Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy do not exist in a vacuum: they are only a small part of a very long history of human beings trying to make sense of themselves and the world, which includes history, philosophy, science, religion and culture, among many other things. Mostly, however, we choose to see ourselves as small, precious objects floating in a rather hostile

universe. Both of these books in different ways put psychoanalysis in context, showing the struggle that has been taking place since Freud to understand where and how our work fits in - or doesn't - with the other ways in which we try to understand ourselves.

Both books are part of a series created by the Psychoanalysis Unit of University College London and the Anna Freud Centre. The Unit was founded by Joseph Sandler when he was appointed to the Freud Memorial Chair of Psychoanalysis. Sandler died in 1998. Three other books have been produced to date: Freud's Models of the Mind: An Introduction, Recovered Memories of Abuse: True or False? and Psychoanalysis and Developmental Therapy.

Foundations for Conceptual Research in Psychoanalysis is by Anna Dreher, who trained as a psychoanalyst in Germany and worked on several research projects at the Sigmund-Freud-Institut in Frankfurt, and in London with Joseph Sandler, with whom she authored What Do Psychoanalysts Want? The Problem of Aims in Psychoanalytic Treatment. Dreher spells out more clearly than I can the purpose of the book:

… [to] plead for recognition of the various forms of psychoanalytic research, but particularly to recognize their interrelatedness and even interdependence. Psychoanalytic (empirical) practice without psychoanalytic concepts is blind, psychoanalytic concepts without psychoanalytic (empirical) practice are empty. Psychoanalysis only stands to gain from an increase in its empirical database and a carefully considered taking-over of effective research methods from other human sciences. However, it is a problem when individual research