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The literature about psychoanalytic technique is very incomplete. The technical instruction in training analysis, supervised work and case seminars still is based to a certain extent on oral tradition. Glover, as director of research in the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London presents in this book neither a textbook nor a discussion on technical problems but, as he calls it, 'an investigation' of technique: he attempts to ascertain by the questionnaire method how the analysts in the British Psychoanalytic Society actually proceed.
The questionnaire itself provides a variety of items to be covered. There are very general questions about technical procedures, special ones about the usual way to handle specific situations, and in the last chapter, Relations of Theory to Practice, even questions about the etiology of neuroses are asked, as for example: 'Do you regard the genital (phallic) Oedipus complex (positive or inverted) as a main factor (a) in neuroso-genesis, (b) in the genesis of psychoses, (c) in characterological cases?' Or: 'Do you regard pregenital fantasy systems as being secondary (regressive, defensive) products relating to genital Oedipus traumata?' The reviewer feels that questions of this kind can not be decided by voting but by research only.
Glover warns against some analysts' 'perfectionism', meaning the assumption on the part of an analyst that only his own method is correct and that all other methods are wrong. The reviewer fears