The British Journal of Medical Psychology. XXXIII, 1960: Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Edward Glover. Pp. 73-82.

This paper is essentially a critical review of parts of five recent books on the teaching and technique of psychoanalysis or psychotherapy, plus Allen Wheelis's, The Quest for Identity. A brief review of the developmental trends in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in Great Britain and in the United States during forty years precedes examination of some inferences drawn from five American volumes. The clear-cut and still valid distinctions between psychoanalysis and other therapies is clouded by failure to preserve the requirements of analysis. This stems partly from overidealization of psychoanalysis, larding it with social ideals and modifying its technical requirements. The widening scope of cases treated, including many social maladaptations which cannot be treated with the classical technique, leads to misunderstanding of the aims and the limits of psychoanalysis. In discussing Wheelis's book, Glover takes sharp issue with the assumptions that the superego has been weakened, the unconscious contracted, or that current environment has wrought any essential changes in psychic structure. To be sure there is a loss of differentiation between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy but the fault lies within psychoanalysis to a large degree. The modifications in technique by analysts, and the embracing of psychoanalytic terminology and accounterments by nonanalysts blur the lines of demarcation. A return to basic principles is needed. Character analysis does not invalidate the essential position of the transference neurosis in any analytic process, nor do the different prognoses alter psychoanalytic theory or technique. The classification of psychotherapies is chaotic and results are still unsurveyed. Psychoanalysis remains chiefly a dynamic approach designed to reduce pathogenic charges while psychotherapy is a structural process to enhance ego defenses. Both have limits of application.