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Those who have read Grinstein's book, Sigmund Freud's Dreams, will be delighted to learn that he has again devoted himself to the same area of work. The former volume was so supremely informative as to bring us ever closer to the Freud immersed in one of his most interesting and absorbing topics. Readers approaching Grinstein's book on Freud's Rules of Dream Interpretation will expect to receive much enlightenment again and they will not be disappointed.
The present volume can serve as an introduction to Freud's classic work, as a review of it, and an embellishment upon it. All of the major topics that Freud dwelt on in explicating the dream work are re-examined and displayed in clinical examples. None of the significant topics in Freud's work (e.g., symbolism, typical dreams), are neglected, and they are described again with new and modern material added. One of the pleasures of the volume is its references to contemporary life. After all, our patients are not likely today to dream of zeppelins; they are more likely to tell us of space wars, jet planes, and computers. As one reads of the old familiar topics, such as means of representation in dreams, the form of dreams, and so on, one continually encounters clinical examples which make this work a veritable treatise on the technique of analysis. Perhaps fortunately for Grinstein, he did not have to abstract the literature on dreams as Freud did—an impossible task today. Nor did he have to deal with the famous Chapter VII, and give us a review of the workings of the psychic apparatus.
If there is one deficiency in the book, I think it is the lack of reference to the modern work on the biology of dreaming, with which even the psychoanalyst should be well acquainted. Consideration of this work and the question of where it supports Freud's work and where it does not, is highly relevant to the main topic of the book.
All in all, this is a very useful exposition of its area of interest and an excellent study of the clinical