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This book is an example of the felicity of expression characteristic of English writers. Its contents were given as lectures, part of the celebration of Freud's birth held in Friend's House, London, during April and May, 1956.
The first lecture, Psychoanalysis and the Sense of Guilt, is a simple, clear yet remarkably broad discussion of superego formation. Ranging from Melanie Klein to Lorenz, the ethologist, it presents in compact form much of today's thinking on this important subject. Child care has been strongly influenced by psychoanalytic theory. Bowlby enumerates many insights of child analysis from Anna Freud and Melanie Klein. His discussion avoids the long words used by persons with less mastery of the field.
Psychoanalysis and Art is, to me, the most exciting chapter in the book. Marion Milner, author of On Not Being Able to Paint, gives a lively and human discussion of the activity of the artist in relation to unconscious forces. While there is little disagreement that psychoanalysis, like other branches of medicine, is an art as well as a science, it is unusual to find an analyst who is also a knowledgeable painter. It seems to this reviewer that many hitherto unspoken aspects of the art of painting have been delineated by Dr. Milner with a clarity and simplicity that would please and instruct many artists and all analysts.
Ilse Hellman points to many of the unconscious forces at work in the classroom. While her observations are confined largely to the teaching of children, they have much wider application. Money-Kyrle gives a searching discussion of the implications of the concept of the unconscious for the philosopher. After a careful survey of many aspects of philosophy, he draws a parallel between the formulations of Freud and various philosophical constructions. His paper is quite unique and does more to illuminate philosophy and show its interrelationships with another field than anything this reviewer has encountered.