Patterns of Psychosexual Infantilism: By Wilhelm Stekel. Edited and with an introduction by Emil A. Gutheil. (London: Peter Nevill, 1953. Pp. 412. 18 s.)

Readers of this Journal will be little interested in this book. It was originally published in 1922, though only the date of the present translation is given, and shows many of the less desirable characteristics of the popularizing writings of that date which were inspired by psycho-analysis. There are no editorial footnotes to indicate developments in psycho-analytic thought since that time, so that the lay reader is faced with such statements as: 'The Freudians point incessantly at the Oedipus Complex (the son's love of the mother) and neglect the homosexual component in the boy's rebellion against the father' (p. 57) as though this represents current opinion, let alone being an accurate description of views held thirty years ago.

It is difficult to credit some of Stekel's utterances, as that 'I have nowhere seen evidence of any physical or psychological harm done by such early seductions of boys' (p. 62). Yet the next paragraph informs the reader that 'Very often the first experience determines the individual's choice of a partner'; which is illustrated by the case of a thirteen-year-old boy who was later sexually potent only with women dressed in the same style as his seductress. This is confusing and, more seriously, misleading.