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It is very doubtful whether a book with this orientation could have been written in Britain at the present time. It was inevitable, however, that in America, that land of perpetual trial and error, novel explorations of this type would be made.
In 1948, the Russell Sage Foundation announced its decision to devote its resources to the cultivation of closer and more effective relationships between researching and practising groups in the social field. This volume relates the history over two years of one such relationship. It describes the results of collaboration between a 'social science consultant' (an expert as yet non-existent here) and the psycho-analytically-oriented child guidance institution of the Jewish Board of Guardians in New York.
The social scientist brought into the clinic with him nine specific social science concepts—the family of orientation (a larger family than the psycho-analyst is used to dealing with), social interaction, socialization, cultural relativity and culture conflict (here, the problem of the Jew in unorthodox surroundings), roles and status, youth culture, and the reinforcement in stimulus-response learning. The governing formula was contained in a synthesis of the situational and psycho-analytic approaches. The good intention was to broaden the scope of therapy and define the limitations set by the environment. The emphasis was on width rather than depth, and on current experience rather than on transference. The therapist was to be made aware of a larger world outside. 'Psychic' reality was not enough. What was also needed was 'real' reality, the living environment of the child. In addition certain 'ancillary egos' (in Moreno's terminology) were employed to play specified 'big brother' and 'big sister' roles (not belonging to Orwellian fantasy) as further 'reality measures'. The needs of disturbed children were here equated with those of psychotics.
The psychiatrist, who sums up, makes guarded and (to my mind) reasonable c