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It has become quite a vogue in recent years to compile and print speedily, and sometimes uncritically, all the papers read at a meeting or symposium. Volume III of Science and Psychoanalysis is such a compilation which contains some forty contributions and discussions, presented at meetings of the Academy of Psychoanalysis in 1958 and 1959. The volume is comprised of six parts: surveys; theoretical and philosophical considerations; anthropologic and sociologic context; developmental observations; clinical studies; values in therapy. Early in the book the editor likens the approach and tenor of some of the contributors to the story of Procrustes who was 'slain by the Greek hero Theseus, who then formed an Aegean League which welcomed all free-thinking and amicable city-states into a more enlightened confederation. In English translation, read: the Academy of Psychoanalysis.' Thus it comes as no great surprise when, at the end of the book, the statement is made: 'How can the affect of guilt, which by definition is a conscious, felt experience, be considered to be unconscious?'. Apropos of Theseus, was not he the one who engaged in some sort of elaborate, acrobatic bull dancing and later, approaching Athens, 'forgot' to change the sails of his ship, thus causing the death of his father?
It would be a disservice to judge this volume solely on such Procrustes-slaying or unconscious-guilt-denying proclivities, though it is difficult for the reviewer to conceive of any practicing psychoanalyst not accepting the existence of unconscious hostility and