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This fascinating, timely book consists of a collection of essays by eight authors, all but one German. The external and internal challenges facing psychoanalysis are all too familiar to us. But hearing these presented from a European, specifically German, perspective, we are surprised to hear a change in voice, to note a shift in emphasis, to meet an unexpected perspective. Old issues spring to life with new energy and hope. In the United States the word psychoanalysis refers almost exclusively to psychoanalysis as therapy. In these pages we reencounter a part of our historic heritage, namely, the belief in psychoanalysis as a force of cultural enlightenment. Most of the authors agree that the institutionalization of psychoanalysis as a therapeutic method betrayed the spirit of psychoanalysis as an enlightening revolutionary approach that once hoped to contribute to bettering the fate of humankind. They see no future for psychoanalysis as therapy, while they believe that psychoanalysis as a spirit of enlightenment will not fade away. This belief appears to rest on nostalgia for the past and on the perceived urgent need of our time for courageous visions, research, and ventures. Psychoanalysis as a cultural force of enlightenment refers not to Freud's specific doctrines, but to his genius and courageous spirit of exploring and inquiring.
I will selectively comment on three of the essays. The editor, Johannes Cremerius, a psychiatrist, neurologist, and internist, sets the tone of the book. He believes in the potential of psychoanalysis as a science of humankind. Such a science would be interdisciplinary and would never fail to question received knowledge, and would ever generate knowledge. He chooses authors from