You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
By Ludwig Eidelberg, M.D. New York: Nervous and Mental Disease Monographs, 1948. 233 pp.
TAKE OFF YOUR MASK. By Ludwig Eidelberg, M.D. New York: International Universities Press, 1948. 230 pp.
Seventeen of Dr. Eidelberg's previous contributions to psychoanalytic literature are complied in the first book, comprising a wide range of subjects in theory and practice. The papers do not appear in the chronological order of their publication, but are rearranged and edited to approach as much as possible a systematization of contents; not every one of the studies will be mentioned in this review.
The first paper, on perversions, makes a contribution to the approval of the perversion by the ego. The second deals with the metapsychology of masochism, along with points on the technique of handling the negative therapeutic reaction. Another paper deals with the analysis of a case of paranoia in which paranoid trends were 'energetically discouraged', and the danger of the homosexual transference effectively averted by recommending that the patient have sexual intercourse. The advisability and indications for such technical devices are discussed.
The study of an interesting case of agoraphobia and writer's cramp, with mechanisms of projection and conversion, stresses the rôle of aggression in the phobia. This theme is also the basis of the article on the comparative theory of the neuroses, wherein the thesis is advanced that, when a libidinal impulse is repressed, the libidinal components are converted into symptoms and the aggressive components into a sense of guilt or anxiety.
A paper on Pseudo Identification illustrates a type of defense mechanism found in some schizoid characters who project their wishes to others and, accepting them, consider it as 'part of adjustment to reality'. Differences between this mechanism and both hysterical identification and paranoid projection are elaborated.
In two papers dealing with slips of the tongue, Eidelberg shows that slips have