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The decade 1952-1962, during which the author has been a distinguished leader of the psychoanalytic movement in France, is covered in these selected papers. The topics discussed range over a wide area, from an essay on unconscious anxiety to a treatise on depressive
states, with several papers on variations in analytic technique and finally an exposition on what he calls the 'presence' of the analyst. In spite of the disparity of the subjects, a fact acknowledged by Dr. Nacht, there is a thread of continuity. He views the problems of psychoanalysis from the point of view of the clinician concerned with the primary role of unconscious anxiety in the pathogenesis of the neurosis and with the crucial role of the 'presence' of the analyst in dealing with this anxiety. The emphasis is thus on the relationship between doctor and patient.
The value and special interest of this book lies in the fact that Dr. Nacht discusses in detail the basic unconscious attitude of the analyst in effecting a cure. He addresses himself courageously and honestly to problems involved in maintaining the so-called analytic neutrality and attempts to delineate technical situations, especially in the termination of an analysis when this 'neutrality' must be modified. He indicates what he means by such modification and attempts to steer between the Scylla and Charybdis of too rigid analytic neutrality and the temptation to act out in the countertransference. He emphasizes in his closing chapter that the most important contribution of the analyst is not what he says but what he is, whence the title of the book.
Besides a rich discussion of technical problems and the role of the unconscious attitudes of the analyst, Nacht also clarifies his concepts of primary organic masochism and the 'pre-object' stage of development of the infant, concepts relatively unfamiliar to American readers. The chronological arrangement of the chapters does not always make it easy to follow the thread of the book