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This book first appeared in German in 1932 as Allgemeine Neurosenlehre in the same year as Fenichel's Spezielle Psychoanalytische Neurosenlehre. The two books were thus complementary. Freud, in a foreword to Nunberg's book, declared it 'the most complete and accurate presentation we have at this time of a psycho-analytic theory of neurotic processes'. Thereafter Fenichel gave his book its new and final form, presenting the clinical subject-matter within a comprehensive theoretical framework under the title of The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (1945).
In the book under review the principles of psycho-analysis had always been in the centre, as exemplified in the neuroses. It has more particularly concentrated on the development of Freud's own thought and contributions, on which it is of the nature of a faithful commentary. More than that, it attempts to give a consistent account of this work up to date and to show that earlier and later views are but steps in the development of a systematic psychopathology of the neuroses. What Freud himself did in the third chapter of his Introductory Lectures (1917) is thus continued in this work.
Two new chapters have been added, one on 'The Dream' (Chap. II) and one on 'Character and Neurosis' (Chap. X). The former is by way of an introduction to the analytic concept of the Unconscious and to topographical and dynamic concepts. The latter includes an account of the libidinal types (erotic, compulsive, narcissistic).
In the comprehensive chapter on Instincts, the destructive instincts are treated as equal partners with the sexual instincts in accord with Freud's final formulations. This is one of the distinguishing features of this book, and is of considerable importance. Of particular interest is the paragraph on 'The Relation of the Destructive Instincts to the Phases of Libido Organisation' and on 'Development of Object Choice and Restriction of Aggression (Fusion of Instincts)'. The chapter on the Psychology of the