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This is the third annual volume in a series, presenting mostly works by the new generation of German psycho-analysts. According to the editors, the aim of this publication is to present the psycho-analytical reader both with clinical and theoretical essays on various problems in a well-balanced proportion, with an emphasis however on the clinical material. It is a neatly turned out volume with English summaries to the German contributions. (In some of these, however, errors are not absent, e.g. 'reability' instead of 'reality', and 'artificial' instead of 'artistic' expression, pp. 147–8, etc.). Not all the essays come from Germany; there are also articles by other German-speaking authors residing abroad. The volume is completed with references and an index. There is also an appendix, giving a historical note on the development of the German psycho-analytical movement, mainly concerning the analytical institutes (from 1910 to 1960) and a report on recent years (1961 to 1963). The book is divided into (i) general and theoretical contributions, (ii) contributions concerning technique and case histories, and (iii) questions of training. This is a good and practicable division.
In the first section, Benedek's essay concerns the problem of frigidity in women. Its findings are more of a negative than positive order. According to her, maturity depends more on genital primacy than on the presence of vaginal orgasm; frigidity is the result of a conflict between the ideal ego and the sexual need; and infertility is a psychosomatic defence.
There is a remarkable attempt at debunking Hartmann's theory of the conflict-free, autonomous sphere of the ego by Fürstenau. Hartmann, in the author's view, approaches the problems of adjustment wrongly, because he does it from a biological-constitutional, hence rigid and inflexible point of view which represents the ego as a static and almost impassive entity which is able to perform its work 'without dirtying its hands' with con