Edoardo Weiss's book presents certain aspects of ego functioning and development which had been heretofore neglected in psychoanalytic literature. He pays sincere homage to his teacher, Paul Federn, who conceived many of the ideas in this volume. It is a serious and stimulating piece of work, but it is handicapped by a highly subjective approach and a strange unevenness in the scientific level of the material.

The first few chapters are devoted to a general review of some of the basic principles of psychoanalysis: the pleasure-pain principle, the ego and the id, mental energy and the theory of instincts. Beginning with The Dynamics of the Ego, Weiss attempts to formulate his special interest in ego-feeling, the most provocative part of the book. He distinguishes four different kinds of ego cathexis: active, passive, reflexive, and medial. It is the medial libido which is the ultimate source of ego feeling and the truly 'primary