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Sandor Rado taught me his theory of psychoanalysis in his classes at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Clinic. After I was graduated from the clinic, I further learned the clinical application of his theory by discussing it with him over innumerable Saturday lunches and working together with him on many cases where he saw one family member and I another. I am sure this is the easiest and most pleasant way to understand another's thinking. In Rado's case, written papers fully describe his theory, but the language is often Rado's own and the style of the papers is compact, condensed, and abstract.
Sandor Rado called his theory Adaptation Psychodynamics to distinguish the theory of psychoanalysis from the treatment of psychoanalysis. In many respects, his theory is a scientific rewording of Freud's theories prior to 1905 with some extension and revision plus Freud's 1926 revision of his theory of anxiety. In formulating adaptational psychodynamics Rado said that he used Freud's theories on motivation, the importance of an individual's life history, pleasure-pain signals for behavior, mental mechanisms (for example, repression), and a mental apparatus containing a conscious and unconscious. Rado, of course, in formulating his theory was stimulated by a new generation of men like Walter Cannon, Charles Sherrington, William James, William Mac Dougall, Charles Yerkes, August Comte, Ralph Gerard, and Theodosius Dobyhansky. Among the psychoanalysts, aside from Freud, he was influenced by the thinking of Sandor Ferenczi (a constant dinner companion for over eight years), Karl Abraham (his supervisor and close friend), and American co-workers George Daniels, Bert Lewin, Abram Kardiner, and David Levy. From these names you can tell that Rado's thinking was strongly influenced