Psychotherapy of Psychosis: By Gustav Bychowski, M.D. New York: Grune & Stratton, Inc., 1952. 328 pp.

This book clearly fulfils the author's stated aim, 'to outline a synthesis of our present knowledge in order to have a clear basis on which to build further research and study'. He offers it 'to all students of psychiatry who have not had the opportunity to share his observations or were too young or too far away to be exposed to the great teachers of our century, Bleuler and Freud'. Its thirty-four chapters, presented in lecture form, are characterized by their directness, readability, and conciseness. They contain many interesting historical observations on the preanalytic and analytic phases of psychiatry, much valuable theoretical and clinical information on psychotic illness, and detailed case material from the author's wide range of experience with the hospital treatment as well as private care of psychotics, … and besides all this, much food for thought on the present status of our conceptual and clinical approach to mental illness. The scope of the book may be most readily conveyed by listing some of the chapter headings: 1, The Personality of the Psychiatrist; 2, Bleuler and His School—Their Role in Dynamic Psychiatry; 3, Special Practical Problems Presented by the Psychotic; 4, Theories of Schizophrenia; 5, Libidinal Regression, Body Ego Changes and Hypercathexis of Organs; 6, Regression of the Ego. In further chapters the dynamics of ego strength and ego weakness, the mechanisms of depersonalization, splitting and denial, problems of transference, therapeutic handling