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It is not easy to review a collection of reviews—but the Seventh Volume of the Annual Survey of Psychoanalytic Literature of the year 1956 is much more than a mere review. It is a true survey: readable, informative, comprehensive, carefully written, and well organized. It is like a museum or a library where the student, the specialist, the researcher or practitioner: all will use this predigested material according to their different needs. An index and a bibliography help to show the way. Some workers in the field may regret that this most recently published volume covers only the year 1956, but even such a delay is turned into an advantage, because a distance of a few years is necessary to facilitate evaluation of truly essential material, in preference to preoccupation with questions of the day. It is hard to imagine how any serious worker would not want to inform himself in the pages of this book about his colleagues' work in his own or neighbouring fields of our far-spread psycho-analytic empire.
The Cook's Tour is not the answer to the needs of the jaded traveller; however, one would expect from an expert traveller that he knows all the basic facts of such a tour and checks his knowledge annually. This volume offers such an annual check, and is an important post-graduate training which is a deeply felt requirement for many of us.
The seventh volume of the Psychoanalytic Annual repeats the now familiar structure of previous volumes. It gives, as promised, a sober, objective, and—most important—an informative and readable survey of psycho-analytic literature. The opening chapter on History, written by Sigmund Gabe, is of special interest and rich in material, since 1956 was the year of the Freud Centennials. The chapter on History is followed by a chapter on Critique by Hans J. Kleinschmidt. Nathaniel Ross, one of the two Editors-in-chief, describes Theoretical Studies and Psychoanalytic Child Psychiatry. The summary of Clinical Studies is again writt