You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Primarily directed to psychiatric and other social workers—for whose benefit the first four chapters outline some fundamentals of psycho-analysis with special emphasis on ego psychology—this book should also be of considerable interest to analysts working in clinics or as consultants to various social work agencies.
Each of the fourteen chapters is by a different contributor with special experience in its particular
field. Of outstanding interest is the chapter by Dr. Viola W. Bernard on adoption agency practice. She convincingly demonstrates not only the valuable contribution of psycho-analytic knowledge to reducing the hazards of this procedure, but also the excellent field for research it offers to the adequately experienced analyst, 'because of such favourable features as an unusual degree of control over environmental conditions, access to subjects and to history data, etc'. She deals with such topics as the relationship of environmental factors to intellectual growth, optimum age of adoption (before consolidation of 'whole object' at six months), the importance of measures to safeguard ego-continuity despite the too frequently broken object-relationships to which the child client is exposed; selection, preparation, and induction of adopting parents and their reactions to adoption; and the emotional stresses and unconscious attitudes that the social worker in this field must master in herself.
Other subjects include methods of using social workers in psychotherapy, work in family agencies, child guidance, remand homes, general hospitals, and geriatrics. In general the prevalent emphasis is on the interaction of the individual with the environment and on methods of helping adjustment from this direction without attempting to modify deeper personality limitations.
Most of the chapters are simply and readably written. There is an eight-page index, and each chapter has its bibliography.