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This book is devoted to an attempt to explain the relationship between the functions of the brain and the events observed during psychoanalysis. “The term neuropsychodynamic is used to describe the approach to elaborating a model of brain and psyche” (p. 7). There are some neuroscientists who are intensely interested in this area of study, and who will immediately gravitate toward any new contribution to the problem in the hope of finding new information. They will find this book somewhat disappointing.
The problem is whether someone untrained in neurophysiology and/or clinical neurology can work fruitfully in this area. This particular work will strike the neurologic reader by the seeming untrustworthiness of the writer's neurologic opinions. One gathers that he does not do clinical neurologic examinations, and because he is a psychologist, it is probably illegal for him to attempt them. Repeatedly the lack of familiarity with clinical neurologic matters is prominent, so one cannot expect substantial contributions to the problem from such a background. The Preface warns the reader to expect trouble.
“No special knowledge of nervous system structure and function is a prerequisite for understanding this book … I have chosen to rely on verbal description with regard to brain systems and functions. Should visual supplementation be desired—that is, should the reader feel drawn to find out what such structures as the limbic system, locus coeruleus, basal ganglia, and cortical homunculus actually look like—it is with my blessing that I refer him/her to any of the standard works in this field.” (p. viii)
The whole grand enterprise of medical work in this area is given short shrift. It is the reviewer's opinion that without neuroanatomy, neurohistology, neuro-embryology, neurophysiology, neuropathology, and clinical neurology, it is futile to enter the field of “neuropsychodynamics.”
Everywhere the lack of medical experience is apparent and makes the opinions in the book freque