Critical Notices

This book represents an extremely painstaking, detailed study of the material (i.e. products of the unconscious) which the patient—a single woman in the second half of her life—gave to her analyst. The author aims at demonstrating the continuity of the symbolical process rather than at describing what happened during the analytical sessions. He achieves this aim in a masterly fashion, and none of my subsequent critical observations should detract from the value of the book, which in its own way is a classic based largely on Neumann's theoretical writings. The idea of presenting such material with detailed amplification of archetypal themes dates back to Jung's original Symbols of Transformation. There is a fundamental difference in that Adler's patient had actually been in analysis with him, as had Baynes’ patients described in Mythology of the Soul. However, Adler attempts also to demonstrate the practical therapeutic effect of the process and in addition he makes many statements on the general principles of therapy. These are mainly contained in numerous and copious footnotes which make the reading of his book heavy going. Some footnotes contain points of technique or comparison with other dynamic “schools”, while others refer the reader to a wider literature. Indeed, a vast amount of knowledge is deployed and every contingency by way of criticism seems to be taken care of.

As one goes along, one is also struck by the number of quotation marks. I have never read a book in prose which had so many inverted commas per page throughout its length. On closer examination one finds that not only are the patient's own words (or rather those that the unconscious uses to speak through the patient's mouth) set in inverted commas, but the author also frequently uses this form of punctuation in order to appeal to the reader. The latter is asked to note the hidden image—the metaphor inside the word, e.g. p. 196, “she had the courage to ‘re-collect’ these fantasies …”, or the deep