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In this important book a number of leading American psychiatrists have set out to examine the impact of psycho-analysis on psychiatry and allied sciences. Most of them are clinicians who have
had many opportunities to test the value of psycho-analytic theory outside the private consulting room. By dynamic psychiatry they understand psychiatry influenced by psycho-analysis. In Alexander's view the advent of the dynamic orientation in psychiatry has brought the isolated existence of psycho-analysis to an end. Most of the contributors are catholic in their views and tend to combine the psycho-analytic with a comprehensive psychiatric approach. The potentialities of psycho-analysis in the elucidation and treatment of the psychoses remain controversial. Professor Whitehorn of Baltimore believes that in this field some mutually comprehensible modus vivendi between dynamic and organic psychiatry needs to be worked out. Professor Levine of Cincinnati discusses the considerations on which treatment of mental disorders has to be based: (1) Clinical diagnosis, i.e. a formulation of the clinical categories to which the patient's reaction belongs; (2) Dynamic diagnosis, i.e. the assessment of the internal and external forces operating in the production of the patient's difficulties; (3) Genetic diagnosis, referring to the origin and development of the internal forces which are in small part hereditary but are predominantly based on early life experiences; (4) Transference and counter-transference. The dynamic approach is not incompatible with the use of physical treatments in mental disorder. It forms the basis of the 'psycho-somatic approach' which is covered by Alexander with his customary lucidity. An excellent chapter by Professor Brosin of Pittsburg deals with the contributions of psycho-analysis to the study of organic cerebral disorders. The same author reviews the psycho-analytic work on the psychoses. Other contributors are Thomas French, Edoardo Weiss, M