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This is a scholarly and extensive review of the interrelation between psychoanalytic and ethical theories. In the preface, the author sets out his intention “to explore and explicate some areas of interaction and common interest to psychoanalytic and ethical perspectives.” He argues that psychoanalysis contains an ethical doctrine and that ethical issues “pervade the therapeutic process.”
In the first chapter, “Freudian and Postfreudian Ethics,” Meissner writes that Freud's use of the terms moral and immoral reflected his belief that the unconscious, immoral impulse could, with analysis, come under conscious ethical control of the superego. The post-Freudians questioned this view. The roles of cognition, ego functions, sense of self, and mature identity in giving rise to the ideals underlying moral choice are considered. Meissner discusses the work of Fromm, Hartmann, Winnicott, Erickson, and Lacan, among others.
In the second chapter, “Psychoanalysis and Ethical Systems,” there is a summary and comparison of philosophic and psychoanalytic theories. All