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Dr. Jacobson points out the increasing interest that has been centered upon the pathology and nature of identity, for which there is no generally accepted psychoanalytic definition and about which various authors express considerable difference of opinion. The importance of the concept at the present time seems to be due to an increasing need for a better theoretical and clinical understanding of 'borderline' and psychotic patients subject to severe regression leading to a deterioration of object relations and superego and ego functions with 'dissolution of those essential identifications in which the experience of our personal identity is founded'. The author has expanded her earlier paper on The Self and the Object World into the present volume.
The book scrutinizes not only the interrelating development of object relations, identifications, and the feeling of identity, but also the interplay between their vicissitudes and the building up of ego and superego. Its thorough and systematic approach is divided into three sections: a study of the Early Infantile, Preoedipal and Oedipal phases; Superego Formations and the Period of Latency; and a final section on Puberty and the Period of Adolescence. As we expect of Dr. Jacobson, she thoroughly discusses all the interrelating factors of psychic development and attempts to integrate them at each level of development, and carefully assesses controversial opinions. Certain sections of the book demand careful re-reading because of their complexity, while many most enlightening parts bring out important concepts with a free and ready exposition.
Dr. Jacobson carefully reviews the concepts of primary and secondary narcissism and masochism as they have been accommodated to an increasingly clear understanding of the development of the ego, the self, and the self and object representations within the ego. The self is seen as an organized entity including the body as well as the ego and its self-representations and the id a