Psychiatrie Heute (Psychiatry To-Day)

By Kurt Schneider. (Stuttgart: George Thieme, 1952. Pp. 31.)

Die Grenzen der Psychotherapie (The Limitations of Psychotherapy). By G. Ewald. (Stuttgart, 1952. Pp. 35.)

Gesetze und Sinn des Träumens (Laws and Meaning of Dreaming). By K. Leonhard. (Stuttgart, 1951. Pp. 146.)

German psychiatry has for some time been stagnant. In the fields in which it excelled, progress has come to a standstill: descriptive psychiatry, as Professor Schneider frankly admits, has come to the end of its resources; the same can be said of neuro-pathology; and psychiatric eugenics stands discredited. The attitude of most German psychiatrists to the dynamic approach based on psycho-analysis is one of rejection or bewilderment. Having fought psycho-analysis tooth and nail, they now find that, while it is prohibited in the East for ideological reasons, it has conquered most of the important teaching centres in the United States. The reactions to this situation are interesting to watch. The sense of frustration in the proud centres of German psychiatric teaching and research must be considerable. Frustration is apt to lead to regression. And this is exactly what threatens to happen to German psychiatry, which shows distinct signs of again embracing philosophy, from which it had emancipated itself only with the greatest difficulties. In many University Clinics the old captains are still at the helm. The younger generation has not arrived. It is against this historical background that the first two of these publications have to be appraised. The third is typical of quite a number of publications in Germany and elsewhere. It deals with a subject on which psycho-analysis has thrown much light. Having recognized this in generous terms the authors ignore the psycho-analytic contribution more or less completely, and produce a 'purified' version of their own.

Professor Schneider of Heidelberg reflects on the present situation of psychiatry: it rests on two pillars, neuropathology