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This is a book written in popular form for the average lay reader, but unlike the usual popular accounts of the facts and theories of psychoanalysis, it is composed of a series of case histories. In the sense that case histories in popular form are presented here, it is unique and the first of its kind so far as can be ascertained. There are twenty-six case histories, six of them war neuroses, the whole preceded and concluded by theoretical chapters. The greater part of the clinical material is verbatim, the rest reproduced in condensed form. Direct quotations of questions and remarks by the analyst are included. Towards the end of each case, sometimes dispersed throughout, interpretations are cited. A facsimile of a letter from Freud written four months before he died serves as frontispiece. The author's style is strikingly pithy, direct and simple. The clinical material is fresh and colorful.
Dr. Berg states in his preface: 'Though this book is meant to appeal to every class of reader, I should be very pleased if some of my colleagues also find interest and relaxation on this familiar ground'. The reviewer found not only interest and relaxation but stimulation and provocation, doubtless anticipated by the author.
What follows is the reaction of the reviewer to several questions of evaluation of this novel book. First, the choice of material: although nosologically the clinical material is varied, the bulk is the classical clinical material of psychoanalysis: hysterias, phobias, anxieties, and compulsion neuroses. In this regard the author's patients vary from the common run seen here. Although they come from much the same social and economic strata, they are relatively more naïve and much more sexually repressed. They are reminiscent of Freud's case histories, especially the early Studies in Hysteria. The majority are transference neuroses, with atypical neuroses, depressions, diffuse inhibitions, and character disorders playing an insignificant rôl