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The author of this projected three-volume work on the dynamics of psychotherapy is a professor of education at Teachers' College, a clinical psychologist, and a member of the Association for the Advancement of Psychotherapy. Volume I deals with principles of psychotherapy and Volume II with the process from the viewpoint of the 'client'; Volume III is to deal with the procedures from the point of view of the therapist. The approach is eclectic, attempting to cull the valuable contributions of all schools. Each chapter consists of a large series of headings and subheadings so that the test is basically organized into a long series of short paragraphs, each briefly discussing an important topic in psychotherapy.
Such an approach results in too much pigeonholing and generalizing. Illustrations from the author's clinical experience are conspicuously absent, and essentially the volumes are a compendium of psychotherapeutic writings. This results in a deceptive verbal facility and overlucidity which would arouse the scepticism of experienced clinicians.
According to Dr. Symonds, psychoanalysis is not necessarily therapy; it may be used primarily as a method of investigation. He states that in many persons who undergo a freudian analysis the neurotic problems remain. He further states that psychotherapy places the main accent on experience, whereas psychoanalysis is essentially a mental exercise—'although because of the nature of the subject matter, it also arouses emotional responses'. All this will certainly astonish the analyst who has seen failure in psychotherapy followed by success in psychoanalysis. The author seems unaware of the role of