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Nine authors are represented in this second anthology devoted to psychoanalysis and the social sciences. A comprehensive introduction is supplied by de Saussure's article, Psychoanalysis and History. This is followed by anthropological papers by Bonaparte, Devereux, Muensterberger and Róheim. Aesthetics and history are represented
by Lee and Lowenfeld, respectively, while the two final papers, written by Kurth and Money-Kyrle, are on sociological subjects.
De Saussure points out that the method of psychoanalysis is itself historical, and then summarizes Freud's contributions to historical objectivity, to social psychology and to anthropology. The unique contribution of psychoanalysis to history is implied in the question: 'What are the fundamental emotional attitudes of a time and how did they reflect on the social structure and the cultural patterns?' All history is written from one or more points of view; that of psychoanalysis is the interpretation of unconscious causation behind a civilization and its political events.
Methodological difficulties arise from our lack of a system by which to connect and classify individual reactions and social patterns. The basic unit in such a system, says de Saussure, is affect which has three components: 1, an emotion; 2, a representation of the outside world; and 3, a potential action. The socialization of affects is accomplished in a variety of ways that, successful or unsuccessful, have implications for the fate both of individuals and of groups. This leads to a long discussion of the question: Does a neurotic culture exist?, and then to a consideration of the possibilities of 'collective mental hygiene'. The author concludes with a plea for further research by analytically trained sociologists and social psychologists.
In Notes on Excision, Marie Bonaparte discusses the effects of clitoridectomy on female psychosexuality. Her material was gathered principally in North Africa and from the anthropological literatu