The Writings of Anna Freud. Volume VIII: the Psychoanalytic Psychology of Normal Development: New York: International Universities Press. 1981. Pp. 389.

With mixed emotions of sadness and pleasure we join Anna Freud on a final voyage of psychoanalytic exploration, visiting familiar places once again, and, to our delight, also venturing into uncharted territory. As in much of her previous work, we are quickly caught up in the freshness of her approach to the basic findings and concepts of psychoanalysis and by the directness of her approach to basic problems which others tend to dismiss, pass over, or disregard.

It is the principal contribution of this volume that, in the face of every multiplying alternative theories, all labelled 'psychoanalytic', Anna Freud reminds us what it means to be a psychoanalyst. In 'A study guide to Freud's writing', (the English version is published here for the first time) she presents the fundamental tenets of our science; the study guide format permits her to restate these tenets in her own words while referring us to the principal writings of Freud from which they are derived. A list of subheadings in Part I of this work conveys the fundamental nature of what she has to say: The Meaning of Dreams, The Concept of the Unconscious, Instinctual Drives, Human Sexuality, The Structure of the Psychic Personality, Pleasure Principle and Reality Principle, Repression, Symptom Formation, Neurosis and Psychosis,