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If it is difficult to understand the current fuss about brief psychotherapy, one has only to consult the psychiatric novelists; they have everything under control. In a recent March of Time movie, a psychiatrist apologetically tells a patient that his treatment may last as long as a month. In this respect the novel under review is, to be sure, more conservative, since the patient is not cured until
ten months have elapsed; but the general impression of the brevity of psychoanalytic treatment, conveyed by such books and monotonously justified by poetic license, cannot be too fortunate in its effects upon the public.
At best, it is highly questionable whether case histories in the form of the novel can properly be designated as literature, however skilled the writer. There is such a painful creaking of machinery, there is so little demand upon the writer to make use of that subtle indirection which presents human experience in a genuinely creative fashion, that I cannot believe a really fine 'psychiatric novel' is possible. In this particular instance, the writing is not only lacking in skill, to put it charitably, but much of the psychoanalytic technique, as described, is simply amateurish. Thus, within the first few interviews, the patient is treated to an elaborate lecture on the Oedipus complex and is literally overwhelmed by deep interpretations. Lectures on other matters are frequently delivered throughout the course of treatment. Penis envy is introduced to the patient when she is far on the periphery of the subject. There is little opportunity for her to give free associations, for the analyst interrupts incessantly with questions and remarks. Perhaps some of this may be justified by the demands of literary form, but this has become too tedious an excuse to warrant much consideration.
If this novel is not impressive as a psychoanalytic document, it is much less so as a piece of writing. It is difficult to convey the mawkishness of the style, the awkw